James Delaney is a multidisciplinary artist with a current focus on sculpture and art as a tool for placemaking. Standing at the intersection between art and landscape, James creates pieces that bring their surroundings into relief, highlighting how the spaces we inhabit, be they city streets, wild spaces or man-made parks, affect and are affected by our presence. It is art as catalytic trigger, transforming both its environment and its audience.
His art has been shown in over 20 solo and group exhibitions in Johannesburg, Cape Town, London, Paris and New York. A main through line of his work is a deep sense of place, starting conversations about how we engage with the spaces around us, both built and natural. The human condition is affected by environment, the beauty of a green space or the complexity of the built environment. Our impact is recursive, shaping and reshaping both the world and ourselves.
James’s studio at Victoria Yards, an artist and artisan complex in Johannesburg’s inner city, produces sculptures for clients around the world, in addition to his continued work in oil on canvas, lithography, linocut, silkscreen and charcoal drawing. In addition, he has become well known for his ongoing and instrumental role in the rehabilitation of a large public park called The Wilds. Although based primarily at Victoria Yards, he works in New York every year, where he has produced various print works around the remains of history in the architecture and public art around the city.
His award-winning work has been recognised by Business Arts South Africa (BASA) and the South African Institute of Architecture and been included in the Spier, Rand Merchant Bank, Merrill Lynch Bank of America, Constitutional Court of South Africa and City of Johannesburg collections, among others. He often collaborates with other artists, and has worked with several printmakers, including LL Editions, The Artist’s Press, Artist’s Proof Studio, and Robert Blackburn Print Workshop (New York).
Born in Cape Town in 1971, James studied at the University of Cape Town, and has been working as an artist since 2001. He is interested by the use of art to create pieces that not only act as a focal point in an environment but transform it, drawing visitors into a conversation about the past, present and future of the space – and their role therein.
This is evident in his ongoing sculptural installations at The Wilds, where art has played a key role in drawing people back to a park once overgrown, neglected and labelled as dangerous. He also took on the role of landscape designer for Indwe Park, a new addition to the landscape of Johannesburg’s inner city. These works are the physical manifestation of the artist’s role as a prism through which the world, and our place in it, can be perceived in new ways, the catalyst for a shift in perspective. It is a dialogue between environment and art-making, interrogating how art interacts with and is informed by its surroundings.
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