Anatomy : Landscape of the Body (2 Rev ed)

In Anatomy of the Body eighty panel paintings from Philip James Studio construct an artistic metaphor for the human physical system: a viscous surface of pulped and washed colour interprets the intricate framework of muscles, arteries, bone and soft tissue, all infused with an internal dynamic of potent nervous energy. The volume carries eighty colour reproductions of artworks with brief descriptions of anatomical functions of the portrayed parts. The Anatomy Series of 2002 was made in a quantity of eighty panels, taking three weeks to complete. The set considered the landscape of the human physical system.

The panels were worked on flat, painting twelve at a time in rotation.

They were laid out on an old framed 6' x 3' piece which also served as a container for the pool of colour washed over the textured surface.

Two inch square wooden cubes were used to stack the panels in small towers to dry out.

Various factors steered the series development: there was an initial colour plan, I thought about the load-bearing pressures on the body, of the complex interplay of its organs, nervous energy and circulation, and supporting frameworks of bone, muscle and soft tissue. The paintings formed a continuing conversation with the colour plan, with titles assigned later to photographs of the resulting works.

The ambition has been to achieve the identity of the body not by literal description, but by equivalents found by chance in the passage of an abstract process.

Philip James, London 02/03