JAMES KAUM

Recent work

Painting Time. Painting Soul.

2015

The Painting ime portrait series tries to capture the various stages of the “Über Ich, Ich and Es” throughout time.

Poetic violence of a fearful mind

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2015

Fear is a constant in our lives. It forms and disfigures our dreams and souls.

Märchen und Gespenster

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2015

Throughout history fairy tales scared and educated children and adults alike. They are powerful and rich in symbolism. They are a strong cultural heritage of any society.

The unbearable lightness of being

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2017

Trying to be is the hardest thing. It means to leave the save middle and stand out. It is not always beautiful and mostly painful and lonely.

The unbearable lightness of being

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2015

The ink drawing was inspired by Albrecht Dürer’s engravings of the Apocalypse.

Sickness paintings or Dante’s boils series.

2015

The phosphor and sulfur material used as the base of the artwork represents hell. It is highly flammable. The boils depict disease. It is beautiful and repulsive in its content and meaning.

Prostitute Cycle

The orgasmic pleasure of death

2001

HIV infected beautiful women. Prostitutes are on offer. They are for free but no condom is allowed. The customer has to decide:

Sex , orgasm, disease and death …or abstinence. What is stronger? Instinct or Intellect?

Decay in Heaven and Hell

2010

The art work has many connotations. It was inspired by church windows, decaying cell structures and flames.

They build an abstract depiction of hell. They are beautiful as well as scary. James Kaum believes that Heaven and Hell are the same. It is all in the eye of the beholder. What Hell is for one means Heaven for another.

Death series 1

2014

The art pieces are built of explosives. They represent beauty which by closer inspection reveals its deathly content.

Death series 2

2014

The art pieces are build of explosives. They represent beauty which by closer inspection reveals its deathly content.

Death series 3

2014

The art pieces are build of explosives. They represent beauty which by closer inspection reveals its deathly content.

Mother & Child

Suicide bombers

2014

The collages depict in a poetic way portraits of suicide bombers. Their explosive content is sometimes hidden.