James Stead (born 1966) earned a Higher Diploma in Education, an Honours Degree in Psychology, and a Bachelor of Arts. He taught English, Psychology, Drawing/Painting, and Art History for a long time at various secondary schools.
Although he loved teaching, he decided to retire at fifty and establish himself as an independent artist. In 2016, he began painting primarily super-realistic still lifes of fruit, vegetables, and flowers in his self-built garden shed behind his house.
He uses old, found wooden planks and discarded scaffolding parts as his base, which a contractor from his hometown of Knysna saves for him. The contrast between the rough wooden planks and the highly realistic oil paintings makes his work unexpected and alienating.
He paints the still lifes on 5mm-thick hardboard and then manually mills the shape of the still life into the attached planks, allowing the painted surfaces and wooden planks to seamlessly merge.
James says of his work: “The metaphors I seek are located within this industrial inception of the artwork and the rich tradition of still life. The symbolism and potential of fruit, subject to the passage of time and space, interest me; as do the textural contrasts between the wood and the smooth luster of oils.”
