About
JamesDupen
I'mAn Artist
Hi there, I'm James aka blueberymuffins. I make art that explores and embraces the weird parts of my life.
About
I’ve been on many journeys in my life, found homes in so many places, but I still don’t feel any closer to finding myself. This feeling of uncertainty -in myself, in the world, in everything- is what drives my art. Sometimes my art is gross or scary, I like to embrace these emotions. I feel like art has a tendency to focus on feelings that we are comfortable with, I strive to do the opposite. I want to make you uncomfortable, I don’t want everyone to like my art.
I like to work with different mediums in my art, one drawing may have everything from pencil to acrylic but it’s this mix of materials that I really enjoy. I like to work with the weird textures and ‘mistakes’ that show up as I work through a piece. I want the viewer to feel like they can almost see the different layers of a piece, like they can see the process of me thinking what to put next. I work in a lot of messy fragments that I slowly piece together as I work. Eventually this collage of lost parts starts to fit together and make sense and then suddenly I know what I’ve been drawing this whole time.
Being queer has left me with the options of either; being a queer artist and letting my body define me and my practice, or feeling like I have to hide who I am and who I was. I’m still not sure where I stand or where I want to stand on this idea. On one hand, I appreciate that people are interested and generally accepting of my identity. However, I feel almost fetishized in a way. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if people like me for who I am or what I am.
Works
Portfolio