James Randell,
Class of 2023

Artist, Printmaker & Facilitator

Loose Characters
etchings and collage

‘…a portfolio of loose characters [that] contains an exhilarating brew of never-ending possible combinations… To finally harness this set of free spirits is like an act of betrayal, imprisoning these individuals, condemning them to a life of frozen violence.’

(Paolozzi, 1996: 11-12)

I use Paolozzi’s words here to explore my own deployment of ‘kits’ and ‘building blocks’ in an interdisciplinary practice. I often use ‘kits’ of found materials to maintain a flexible, responsive engagement with artworks until the very end of the making process, seduced by the ‘exhilarating brew’.

My work with a group of neurodiverse adults at ‘Hart School’ 2021-22 has prompted me towards queer and ‘neuroqueer’ theories, which offer a liberatory alternative framework to binary concepts of identity and inflexible paradigms. This research has been the trigger for investigations about power, collaborative relationships and inclusivity in the face of reductive categorisation and barriers to access still present in contemporary art and art education.

This piece, Loose Characters, is a reflection on the wonderful mess of a research workshop I conducted with participants from the original Hart School programme. The prints are a careful response to the creative choices and human interactions amongst the group, a reflection on my instinct to find order in the chaos, to pin down the fragments left behind.
Paolozzi, E. (1996). Artificial Horizons and Eccentric Ladders, London, British Council.