James Yuncken is a Melbourne based artist, working from a studio on Smith Street in Fitzroy.

James has exhibited frequently in Melbourne and Canberra since 1989.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2018                Improvisations, St Vincent’s Residency: Drawings from Caritas Christi, St Vincent’s Gallery, Fitzroy

2017                Represented 45 at 45, fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne

2015                The Drawing Room, Prints, Drawings and Bas Relief, fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne

2014                Places Nearby, More Inner Melbourne fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne

2012                Walking to Work, Melbourne, Inner East fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne

2011                Vox Pix, Voices and Images Together Centre for Theology and Ministry, Parkville

2010                Travelling North, Journey to Cape York fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne

2008                Abstraction and Space, fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne

2005                Formal Considerations, 257 Church St, Richmond and On-line

2003                Sense of Place, SPAN Galleries, Melbourne

2001                Presence/Absence, SPAN Galleries, Melbourne

2000                Represented 8 x 8, Roar Studios, Fitzroy

1999                Represented 8 x 8, Roar Studios, Fitzroy

1998                Represented 3rd Annual Summer Show, Galerie helengory, Richmond

1997                First Steps, Galerie helengory, Richmond

1996                Represented A Four Art 19 ninety-six, Westspace

1995                Studio Landscape Exhibition, Smith Street Studio, Fitzroy

1993                Represented Swan Hill Print and Drawing Show

1992                Represented Studio One’s ’92 Pressing Annual Show, Spiral Arm Gallery, Canberra

1990                Represented Sun, Smoke and Steel, Studio One touring exhibition Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle

1989                Images in Different Genres, Dorette’s Bistro, Canberra

Travels with My Wife

My wife likes to travel. Travel is her great escape, from the daily grind of earning a living, to a world of places, experiences and romantic atmospheres that bring joy to her soul.

In 2018 Sophie’s journey to Hong Kong was different and she needed some support. This time it was travelling to work. Finding an everyday life in a foreign environment where you have no established friends or local connections is not the romance of travel. It’s a little daunting. I found myself – for first of many times – on a plane to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong – China: One Country, Two Systems: The Asian Century. An Asian mega-city, an international finance hub sporting an array of architectural show pieces promoting various brand-egos.

But what made an impression on me and what led me to paint was –

The airport: An artificial island in the South China Sea has spectacular views of cloud covered Lantau Mountain and its form signals China. The mountain is guarded by rows of apartment towers lined up like soldiers. Imagining a life there sends a shudder down my spine. Look in the opposite direction, beyond planes, runways, hangers, terminals and you’ll see the sea and ubiquitous clouds, haze, ships and busy swarms of dredges.

The harbour: The water, where ships come and go as they have, ever since and even before the British freebooters, thugs and drug runners stole it at gunpoint. Those same ships I saw from the airport, all shapes, sizes and ages, but mainly the grimy, ships of work and commerce, old, new, big and little.

What I found was, I guess, what was ever there: the gateway to southern China, to trade and riches.

A haze sits over it all: the tropical haze, the industrial haze. Everything is just that little unclear …