James Rogers (b.1993, Wolverhampton) explores figuration in the realm of the post digital age. Growing up on the outskirts of ex-industrial Wolverhampton, Rogers was often confronted with the pride of the Black Country’s industrial history, but also the realisation that there was a new digital landscape emerging. Some of his earliest influences came about through his father who worked as an electrician, and his grandfather, a skilled glass engraver to the local towns and their kilns.

Rogers work often begins with performance motion-capturing and 3D scanning himself performing acts of labour or dressed in an inflatable dinosaur suit. With the help of his 1.5m^3 self-built 3D printing machine he is able to push these studies through a series of sculpting and drawing processes that blend both mechanical and hand sculpted (or drawn) elements together to find a certain moment of metamorphosis, in which the individual transforms. These processes involve extruding blocks of clay into coils, melting and constructing wax for casting or by fitting the printer with an etching needle, to connect his sculptural investigations to his works on paper as the mechanical pathways become depicted in lines. His work explores themes of connection, dependency, and how these tendencies are mirrored into our technological networks, and then fragmented or even broken as they translate themselves into digital information, physical emotions, then back again. What emerges are works that explore themes of masculinity throughout history, especially motifs of equestrian monuments.

Rogers studied and graduated from Camberwell College of Arts, London (2016). Recent exhibition include Gonna tell my kids this was Marcus Aurelius, Benappi, Mayfair, 2022,2023 Eye of the Collector with Brocket Gallery and 2023 London Original Print Fair, with Julian Page. He has been awarded the Fenton Arts Trust Award under the patronage of Dame Maggie Smith and has previously been awarded the Mead Scholarship supported by the philanthropist Scott Mead. He is currently artist in residence at Centre For Print Research (Bristol UWE).