Jim studied Graphics at Reigate School of Art. After only two years working in design studios, Jim left the art world to work variously as a taxi driver, florist, garage hand and gardener before coming back to his artist self when he worked as an Occupational Therapy Assistant at Netherne Psychiatric Hospital. Working there with patients he discovered a way of working for his own ends through the mediums of College, Found Objects and Assemblage.
Jim’s early work was largely instinctive and later became influenced by Constructivism and Bauhaus Modernism. He enjoys the variety of interpretation that found objects afford. There are opportunities to be representational or abstract, humorous or austere. Whilst there is an undeniable satisfaction in re-purposing found materials, my work is in no way an ecological statement.
Almost always the materials he uses have a previous life at the hand of man. The satisfaction for him is to bring the aesthetic quality of the discarded, abandoned and set aside before the gaze of others.
More recently he has turned to photography and monoprint, mainly because of a recent hip operation restricted his beach combing and foraging activities.
