James Johnson-Perkins

Year of birth: 1972.
Where do you live: Lives, Southampton, UK.
Your education: MA/BA/PGCE/SFHEA.
Your discipline: GIGATAGE-DIGITAL MONTAGE.
Website

What inspired you to develop your GIGATAGE project, and how did you choose the specific locations featured in these works?

Once upon a time, in the vast and twinkling world of the internet, there became a magical project called GIGATAGE. 

It’s simple: I wanted to plunge headfirst into the chaotic miasma of human history and extract something meaningful from it—like a mad scientist operating on the veins of time itself. The locations? They were chosen not just for their picturesque views but for their deep, existential significance. These are places where the ghosts of past follies still murmur and where the absurdity of human endeavor screams from the cracks in the pavement. 

These sites in VENICE, KATHMANDU, NEW YORK, MOSCOW, BRIGHTON, AGNKOR and ISTANBUL are chosen for their rawness, their power to UNSETTLE and PROVOKE, ENGAGE and ENCHANT.

The GIGATAGE project emerges from a chaotic symphony of digital exploration, driven by an obsession to capture the elusive, echoes of forgotten realms. Imagine navigating the boundless expanse of the internet like a lost soul in a cosmic jazz improvisation, hunting for those eerie, liminal spaces where history and the present converge in a disorienting crescendo. 

James Johnson-Perkins | The Great Battle, After Canaletto, Venice, Italy, 7m x 2m, 2014-23

How do you approach the use of Gigapan technology and montage in your art, and what challenges have you encountered while working with these tools?

The Gigapan is a monstrous contraption, a digital Frankenstein’s monster that stitches together a patchwork of insanity. Montage? That’s where I play mad scientist, layering fragmented visions into a single, mind-warping spectacle. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces, and the challenge is keeping the whole thing from spiraling into an irredeemable mess.

GIGATAGES are my secret weapon, my post-digital magic carpet ride through the labyrinth of pixels. They allow me to assemble fragmented visions into sprawling, high-resolution nightmares and dreams. To overcome challenges, I navigate the digital haze, aligning countless images into a coherent whole, stitching together a fragmented imagined landscape. 

James Johnson-Perkins | The Assembly of the Gods, After Raphael, Kathmandu, Nepal, 10m x 2m, 2012-23

Your works often reference historical figures, artists, and thinkers. How do you select which figures to include, and what role do they play in your narratives?

In selecting historical and modern figures for my works, I often choose individuals whose lives or ideas resonate with the themes I’m exploring. These figures act as tiny touchstones within my art, adding layers of meaning and context.

The artists and thinkers are chosen not with cold calculation but with a poet’s fervent heart. They are spirits who have walked the earth with fierce purpose, their voices resonant with the eternal questions of existence. The figures in my work are like spectral intruders from another dimension, their voices echoing through the static. I choose them based on the strange resonance they have with my ideas, their own stories bend and twist through the layers of narrative.

James Johnson-Perkins | Times Square Nude, After Bosch, New York, USA, 4.5m x 1.5m, 2012-24

Can you share more about the themes of ethics, religion, the uncanny, refuge, and war that are present in your GIGATAGE works?

Themes of ethics, religion, the uncanny, refuge, and war are explored through a kaleidoscopic lens, echoing the thematic depth of a metaphysical poem such as T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, and they are rendered in ultra-high-resolution to provoke profound reflection on the chaotic and unsettling aspects of human existence.

These themes are the dark veins running through the fragile skin of existence. Ethics are the brittle, cracked facades of moral absolutes; religion, a cold, distant sound of solace that can both comfort and torment. The uncanny is the unsettling tremor that shakes the core of the self, refuge a frail sanctuary that crumbles under the weight of reality, and war, a relentless, animalistic storm that tears through the fabric of our being. Each theme reflects my inner turmoil—the ceaseless battle between my mind’s longing for meaning and a void that threatens to engulf it.

James Johnson-Perkins | Mother (In law) land, After Schopenhauer, Moscow, Russia, 4.8m x 1m, 2014-24

How do the historical and modern figures in your works contribute to your exploration of history, identity, and place?

Historical and modern figures in my pieces serve as metaphors for broader concepts of history, identity, and place. A historical figure might symbolize certain ideological struggles, while a contemporary figure reflects current issues. This interplay between different eras and viewpoints helps me construct a richer, more layered understanding of the themes I’m addressing.

James Johnson-Perkins | The Raft of the Brightonian, After Géricault, Brighton, UK, 6m x 1.5m, 2011-24

How has your experience living and working in different countries influenced your creative process and the subjects of your art?

My global odyssey has been a whirlwind of cultural disarray, like a series of psychedelic trips or memories through similar fractured landscapes. I’ve tasted some of the world’s wild, bitter, sweet, and salty flavors. Each place, each culture, brings a new rhythm, a new beat that fuels creativity. Exposed to new cultural contexts, historical insights, and societal issues, I’ve enriched my work with these diverse perspectives and my global experience has helped me approach themes from multiple angles, adding depth and complexity, whilst the stories of these places also seep into my art, contributing to the kaleidoscope of narrative textures.

James Johnson-Perkins | Realms, After Darger, China/Cambodia, 5m x 1.2m, 2023

What message or feeling do you hope viewers take away from your ultra-large-scale digital images?

From these massive digital images, I hope viewers don’t just see but feel. I want them to be jolted awake by the scale, drawn into the tempest of details and grand narratives. I want them to get swept up in the whirlwind.

It’s about plunging them into a world where the familiar becomes alien—a sensory overload. I want them to feel as though they’re falling through a fractured, hallucinatory dimension where history, identity, and the very fabric of existence unravel in a chaotic mess. They are immersive experiences, where there is a sense of having ventured into a vast, surreal wilderness, lost in a sprawling, disoriented dreamscape where history and identity blur into one grotesque, beautiful vision.

James Johnson-Perkins | Maps, Signs and Symbols, After Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid, Istanbul/Turkey, 7.34m x 1.88m, 2024