James Price releases 'A Place To See'

Published 16 December 2019

Following a successful artist residency during Sustainable September

“The intention of the work is to acknowledge that while the market exists as one thing – a place to obtain goods and services, it also exists as a cultural space in its own right .”

City of Port Phillip Cultural Development Fund recipient James Price has released a booklet of art produced during his successful pop-up residency at the Market as part of Sustainable September in September 2019.

Price, a self-described 'maker' successfully applied for a grant to chronicle the cultural value of the Market through daily interactions between the market community, stallholders and employees.

While in its simplest form, the Market is a place of commerce where goods and services are exchanged for money, Price was driven to dig deeper.

Each morning of his residency, Price photographed people within the Market space. Using upcycled materials like broken down cardboard boxes from a fruit and vegetable stall, paper from a butcher or used milk cartons from a café, he turned these photographs into drawings and paintings, capturing the many stories of the Market.

Price collated his artwork into a booklet called A Place to See, which is printed on 100 per cent recycled paper, as a way of giving back to the market community. Copies of the booklet are available from the South Melbourne Market office - free of charge.

The Cultural Development Fund is an annual arts and heritage grants program for artists and related organisations in Port Phillip which aims to:

support artists and organisations to develop and realise creative projects in the City of Port Phillip
support community managed projects
generate arts and cultural activity
build cultural identity
support and celebrate community diversity
support heritage initiatives.

About the Artist

James Price is an internationally acclaimed artist and maker. He uses the term ‘maker’ as its lot easier than listing himself as an illustrator, designer, photographer, animation director, painter, art director, live action director, documentarian, poet, writer and storyteller. James has won lots of awards all over the world for his works. His drawings, films, writing, paintings, installations and photography mix elements of Folk art and contemporary Abstraction to help connect the dots between our history, our identity and our inner ‘primal’ self.

In 2017 James completed a prestigious commission from Transport NSW to create an animated film created for a 23m x 3 m screen in Sydney’s Wynyard Station. The film re-imagined vintage mugshots from the Sydney Living Museums collection to ask questions about the way Australian culture idolises elements of it’s criminal past. Consisting of over 2,500 drawings made with pencil and paper the film remixes history and cultural ideology for 30,000 people a day.

Whether telling his own story or helping other people tell theirs he strongly believes that communication works best when it comes directly from the imperfect heart of its creators.

Following stints living and traveling all over the globe – including a decade working from his own highly successful studio in New York, James currently resides in Melbourne. He considers himself a citizen of the world (which is rubbish, because both his passport and his accent say he’s Australian).

www.theartofjamesprice.com

Supported by the City of Port Phillip Cultural Development Fund

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