‘Lust’ from ‘Fruiting Bodies, shown at the Castlemaine State Festival, 2011

‘Fruiting Bodies’ is ripe with suggestion which you are free to associate with any of the images according to your own interpretation. Before you jump to conclusions; consider how strange is the phenomenon of the fruiting tree to which the title most obviously refers.

Is it promiscuous to offer your seed openly to the elements, to any who will take it. Is this forbidden?

Is it profligate to hide your progeny inside gifts so tempting in their appeal to that most primitive desire, hunger?

Is this wholly mere biological expedience evolved to ensure the widest migration of your offspring? Or does it derive from some boundless cosmic generosity?

Come close to the tree, where within its arms you will find shelter from the sun at its seasonal zenith and from the autumnal rains.

Fruit is the focus of James’s lens as it circles deep into the embrace of limbs and leaves.

Taste these gifts. Art is for giving and taking; available to all who use their eyes.

If you are curious, some technical information follows:

James’s practice is to use the qualities of the medium to reflect on itself. Camera vision and human perception are often compared; this is an simplification, but full of potential that might illuminate the nature of vision and attention. Haptic senses are stimulated in the eye by ‘racking’ focus (normally a cinematographic effect); and elsewhere with tilt-shift techniques; while ‘dollying’ the camera by hand around a still point renders the concentric vortex effects. A sense of physical presence and immersion is evoked.