Contemporary Fine Art Degree Show (Art practice statement)

In reference to the rhythmic cycle of formal and conceptual aesthetics in self-referential art, James Cotton’s artist practice seeks to examine this model, and its relation with art and the audience. In this condition, art exclusively responds to itself and becomes justified by its own terms, as the qualities of the work revolve around the return of self. In the process the work escapes any requirement to negotiate external entities, as its singular concern is being complete in itself; the only exceptions to this are the initial concept and the primary choice of the medium. The harmony of the image inside image, or the form inside form is understood, whilst it is questionable how and why the image or the form was originally decided. Perhaps Bruce Nauman’s studio philosophy can be applied: ‘My conclusion was that I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever it was I was doing in the studio must be art’.¹

An art activity is chosen and in turn becomes the definitive feature, writing itself out through its own boundaries and order. This insular methodology surfaces in James Cotton’s oeuvre. Firstly from a macro aspect; it only seems coherent that the basis for making work, should be in relation to art itself, thus work is often made in reference to the exchange experienced between the audience and the work. Furthermore this approach of self-perpetual replication is also simulated in the micro aspects of his practice. The study of the structures in text; the space language occupies mentally and physically, inside these dimensions, the form and the process of constructing language, resolves the text produced.

¹Nauman, Bruce, Kraynak, Janet, (2003). Please Pay Attention Please, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.