Politics, society, the place of the individual, freedom of speech and psychological warfare are all elements of James King’s paintings. Colour, texture, composition, construction and deconstruction are also elements to be manipulated by King in his drive to crash through his personal and society’s prejudices. His work is charged with humour and wit, naked sarcasm and emotion, but the key interest for James is the person who views the work. He utterly respects and embraces the perspective of the person who takes time to consider his pictures, even though he might call you a wanker while he does it. Above all he wants New Zealanders to begin to back their own views.

The above untitled paintings were an experiment with colour and block relationships. James masked off blocks on the canvas to create the sense of the perfect line, but of course on closer examination the imperfections become more noticeable. The question for James in these particular paintings is ‘does familiarity breed contempt?’ There are ten other paintings in this ‘series’ all of which are now in private hands. These paintings also represent the third generation of paintings in James’ development as an artist.

For James the above paintings represent a battle for sanity. All of the thoughts expressed in these works were generated as he was applying paint to paper. These are fourth generation pictures. ‘Jesus is a Girl’ is a direct attack on God; James is attempting to goad the Almighty into meeting face to face for a fight to the death (good luck). Similarly in ‘Jesus Fuck’, James is wrestling with God, while thinking about political issues of the day.

James tried to create a haunting series of pictures describing the mood of the world occupied by a faceless, nameless individual at the margins of life. The shadowing behind the coloured ‘figures’ is designed to give a sense of ambiguity and its relationship to the outside or perhaps even an inner world disconnected from the real.

Shapes, colour, and wordplay are an attempt to reinforce narrative by weaving all three elements together, a feature of much of James’ work.

James king was born on a cold winters’ day in 1975. According to legend, when he entered the world the torrential rain stopped and the clouds parted revealing a strong warm shaft of light to the Auckland region.

Although King is in his fourth decade he still has the skin of a young boy, is tall for his age, and sports a taut muscular frame not dissimilar to that of an Olympic athlete. King has many talents, including public speaking and the ability to eat with a spoon. He has a background in journalism and talkback radio where he worked for Newstalk ZB for six years as an overnight host.

James joined Toi Ora in 2008 and quickly forged deep, intimate friendships with staff and members alike. He likes to spend quality time with the other inmates, who feel his style of leadership is firm but fair.

His painting, is described as post post modernism with an urban/rural neo classical pacific feel with a hint of bollocks.

Tribal affiliation Tainui and Tuwharetoa.