Jamie Fitzpatrick is a British artist whose practice deals with the rhetoric of image making, the relevance of the figure and how objects and totemic gestures such as flags, statues or plinths are used within the work to impose forms of power and control. The sculptures are influenced by Wilhelm Reich’s ideas on power-infatuation, cultural conditioning and sexual suppression, the works are built from foam, coloured wax, alpha plaster, scrim, wood, gold leaf, and simply some transgressive act.
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Frieze Magazine described Jamie Fitzpatrick’s aesthetic as “a mash-up of Paul McCarthy and Phyllida Barlow,” and indeed, his sculptures are dynamic and bold. Fitzpatrick brings play and nuance to the motifs of authority and prestige creating works (and worlds) that question positional and hierarchical constructs by remaking and resurfacing narrative objects, his work places the viewer in an ever-shifting position between subordination and empowerment.
By employing the motifs of figurative art, patriarchal depictions of masculinity and nationhood, Fitzpatrick’s domineering sculptures express intention of undermining them, rendering them absurd and dumb. To bring these themes to life, Fitzpatrick uses performance and movement, transforming his sculptors into both actors and sets. He is recently introduced temporal considerations as a means of further undermining the arrogance of permanence in monumental figures.
Jamie Fitzpatrick (b.1985, Southport, UK) lives and works in Edinburgh, UK. He graduated in 2015 with an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, having gained a BA (Hons) in Fine Art, Philosophy and Contemporary Practice in 2009 from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. Awards include: Vordemberge-Gildewart Award (2016), shortlist; XL Catlin Art Prize (2016); UK/RAINE Saatchi Gallery Sculpture Prize (2015); New Contemporaries (2015 and 2016); Cowley Manor (2015), shortlist; LAND Securities Award (2015).
He has been exhibited internationally at galleries, institutions and art fairs including: Contemporary Forward at Touchstones Rochdale Museum, Rochdale, UK; Exeter Phoenix, UK; ICA, London, UK; Camden Arts Centre, London, UK; Saatchi Gallery, London, UK; Sheffield Museum, Sheffield, UK; Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK; Bluecoat, Liverpool, UK; Backlit, Nottingham, UK; Pangaea Sculptor’s Centre, London, UK; Cowley Manor Sculpture Garden, Cheltenham, UK; Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK; VITRINE London, UK and Basel, CH; Deborah Bowman, Brussels, BE; Litóst gallery in Prague, CZ; PADA Barreiro, PT; Cassina Projects with ARTUNER, New York, US; ARTISSIMA, Turin, IT; and POPPOSITIONS, Brussels, BE; ASC Gallery, London, UK; Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer, UK.
Residencies include: Eastside International Los Angeles Residency (US, 2017), Biruchiy contemporary art project with the British Council (Ukraine, 2016); Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre, London (2015); The Leatherseller’s Company (2014); Telfer Gallery, Glasgow (2012); John Kinross Scholarship, Florence, Italy (2010); Cite International des Arts, Paris Residency (2014); and Scottish Sculpture Workshop (2009).
Bel Falleiros, Jamie Fitzpatrick, Scott King, Josie KO, Sahil Naik, Sam Porritt and Abigail Reynolds
Nadim Abbas, Nicole Bachmann, Edwin Burdis, Kara Chin, Anaïs Comer, Tim Etchells, Jamie Fitzpatrick, Ludovica Gioscia, Katrin Hanusch, Candice Jacobs, Sophie Jung, Rene Matić, Campbell McConnell, Paula Pinho Martins Nacif, Milly Peck, Sam Porritt, Ralph Pritchard, Natasha Rees, Bioni Samp, James Stopforth, and Charlie Godet Thomas.
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