Merlin James

As a writer on art as well as a painter, James—a native of Cardiff, Wales, who live and works in Glasgow—has long examined the art-historical conventions of his medium. He mixes up passages of painterly abstraction with genre scenes, landscapes and still lifes, creating a sort of poetical mélange that is part art of memory, part formalistic deconstruction. The newest works here, for example, feature transparent mesh in lieu of canvas, allowing the stretcher supports to show through the compositions.