Abstract Constructs
My practice is rooted in transformation—material, conceptual, and cultural. I work with recycled and previously abandoned paintings and paint, breaking them down and rebuilding them into new works that carry the physical memory of prior gestures while forming entirely new images. These paintings are not revisions or restorations; they are acts of conversion, where past intent is subsumed into a new structure.
Formally, the work moves between abstraction and image, process and narrative. Layers of paint are excavated, compressed, and reconfigured, creating surfaces that feel geological, fractured, and possibly in motion. What appears resolved often contains visible evidence of rupture and repair. I’m interested in how accumulation and erasure coexist, and how meaning can emerge from material instability rather than polish or finality.
Conceptually, the work engages questions of value, authorship, and continuity. By repurposing existing paintings, I collapse distinctions between finished and unfinished, precious and discarded. The studio becomes a site of both destruction and preservation, where time is folded rather than erased. This process mirrors larger cultural cycles of consumption, abandonment, and reuse, but resists didactic conclusions in favor of ambiguity and material intelligence.
JAMES GORTNER
No Name, No Place, (no date)
Reclaimed oil, acrylic, and transformed found paintings on panel, 83 in x 70 in
(Private Collection)
JAMES GORTNER
No Name, No Place, B Side, (no date)
Reclaimed oil, acrylic, and transformed found paintings on linen, 83 in x 70 in
(Private Collection)JAMES GORTNER
Orange, Physics, And Other Colors, (no date)
Reclaimed oil, acrylic, and transformed found paintings on panel, 41 in x 35 in
(Private Collection)JAMES GORTNER
Orange, Physics, And Other Grey Areas, (no date)
Reclaimed oil, acrylic, and transformed found paintings on linen, 41 in x 35 in
(Available)
JAMES GORTNER
Study For An Abstract Construct, (no date)
Reclaimed oil, acrylic, and transformed found paintings on linen, 14 in x 12 in
(Available)
JAMES GORTNER
Study For An Abstract Construct, (no date)
Reclaimed oil, acrylic, and transformed found paintings on linen, 14 in x 12 in
(Available)JAMES GORTNER
Study For An Abstract Construct, (no date)
Reclaimed oil, acrylic, and transformed found paintings on linen, 14 in x 12 in
(Available)JAMES GORTNER
Study For An Abstract Construct, (no date)
Reclaimed oil, acrylic, and transformed found paintings on panel, 14 in x 12 in
(Available)JAMES GORTNER
Study For An Abstract Construct, (no date)
Reclaimed oil, acrylic, and transformed found paintings on panel, 14 in x 12 in
(Available)JAMES GORTNER
Study For An Abstract Construct, (no date)
Reclaimed oil, acrylic, and transformed found paintings on panel, 14 in x 12 in
(Available)
To inquire about curating an exhibition of new works in this series at your museum or gallery, please contact the artist.