Terrence Higgins Trust - 2022, Timed Auction

James Rogers’ work explores figuration in the realm of the post digital, locating himself between his mostly self built technologies and the artist’s hand to explore the ecosystem that exists between us and the emerging digital/ physical landscape.
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 A self built printing machine has been hacked to extrude entire blocks of clay into coils, melting and constructing wax for casting in bronze, or when fitted with a drawing utensil - allow Rogers to connect his sculptural investigations to his works on paper as the mechanical pathways become depicted in lines.
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His work explores connection, dependency, and how these tendencies are mirrored into our technological networks, and then fragmented or even broken as they translate themselves into digital information, physical emotions, then back again. It is here that he establishes his relevance to the underlying ‘digital-physical’ conversion processes of 3D printing and 3D scanning. Rogers will then introduce mark making, glitches, and accidents, working to effect on his artworks, the same processes of distortion that happens as content is created, retweeted, and repeated amongst us. It is here that he is testing the emotional bandwidth of our emerging networks.
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Growing up on the outskirts of industrial Wolverhampton, James was often confronted with the pride of the Black Country’s industrial history, but also the realisation that there was a new digital landscape emerging - one that left the steel mills behind and moved to the cloud. Some of James’ earliest influences came from a combination of his grandfather; a known skilled glass engraver to the local towns, and his father as an electrician - this combined with his child like interest in the new digital world and the narrative centric gaming revolution that came with it - would often lead to him spending hours drawing out plans for various gadgets, vehicles, and the missions he would take them on. It was years later with the discovery of Hogarth’s conversation pieces that he understood the importance of the combination of people, narrative, and objects, in the depiction of social networks

Accolades
BA Fine Art, Camberwell College of Arts, UAL, London, 2016.

Awards: Mead Family Foundation, UAL, London 2015.
Recent Projects: Real People do Real Things, Nike Campaign for Airmax 90, 2019. A boom downloaded from the clouds, Olly Fathers & James Rogers, Arietta Chandris, Blowout Magazine, 2019.
Solo Exhibitions: James Rogers, Blue Shop Cottage, Camberwell, London, 2020.
Recent Exhibitions: The Other Art Fair Summer Edition, Kings’ Cross, London, 2019. This is the end? Candid Arts Trust, London, 2019. Why so yellow? Private residence exhibit, London, 2018. FBA Futures, Mall Galleries, London, 2018.

www.james-rogers.co.uk/
@jamesrogers_artist