James Epps
With scattered red, green and brown: Reimagining Roman Mosaic Fragments in North-East England Collections through Contemporary Art Practice and Creative Writing
Fine Art Postgraduate Researcher
Supervisors: Professor Catrin Huber and Dr Giles Bailey
James Epps is an artist who works across collage, printmaking, sculpture and writing, exploring the slippage between text and image.
Epps’ writing practice is influenced by the sensibilities of a visual practice and use of materials, exercising an attentiveness to objects and their relations in the world.
Using artistic practice, this project examines and reimagines mosaic fragments from across the Roman world now held in the North-East of England. Roman mosaics differentiate space, engage the eye, and draw the viewer through the architecture in which they are placed.
Using artistic practice, this project examines and reimagines mosaic fragments from across the Roman world now held in the North-East of England. Roman mosaics differentiate space, engage the eye, and draw the viewer through the architecture in which they are placed.
The project re-envisions and celebrates the fragments held in North-East collections to consider afresh the spatial and decorative function of pattern within architectural spaces. Through contemporary installations and creative writing this research project creatively expands upon the patterns and possibilities contained by these evocative yet overlooked mosaic fragments.
This research project is funded by the by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Epps’ creative practice reimagines the devices at play in Roman mosaics to explore the interconnected fields of art, archaeology, and architecture, and its effects on how viewers navigate fictional, pictorial and real space.
Solo Exhibitions and Projects:
A twist of the Hand, Cambridge Museum of Classical Archaeology, 2021
Off prompt, The Playhouse, Norwich, 2019
With an eye to, 13A St Augustine's Street, Norwich, 2016
Here on in, exterior wall painting on Eyre Lane, Bloc Projects, Sheffield, 2015
Just like that, OUTPOST, Norwich, 2014
