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Mr Jims

@itsmrjims

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“Hell is other people / No Exit” (2026)
Acrylic on canvas, 12x12in

Full Transcript :

The phrase “Hell is other people” — or “L’enfer, c’est les autres” in the original French version — is taken from Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 existentialist play, “No Exit” (“Huis Clos”).

In the story, three dead characters are locked in a single room together for eternity. They torment each other not through physical violence, but because each person’s view of the others traps them in an inescapable psychological prison of self-consciousness.

Thus, Sartre did not mean that other people are simply annoying &/or malicious (although, let’s face it, this interpretation also works pretty well)…

Rather, he meant that our reliance on the opinions, judgments, and gazes of others strips away our own freedom and forces us to see ourselves as static objects rather than free agents.

Sounds like 2026? I wonder what poor old Sartre would’ve made of today’s crazy world?!

Wishing you a great, people-free Tuesday…

Jims x

#socialmedia #identity #self #vibes #blah by @itsmrjims

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2 days ago

Detail from a recent 12x12 artwork (acrylic on canvas).

Line stolen from Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play, “No Exit” — might also be a good title for this piece!

I love working on rich textures / compositional elements / colour combinations which eventually stand on their own as abstracts of a broader abstract piece… it’s kind of creating “worlds within a world”.

Love,

Jims x

#identity #self #freedom #perspective #blah by @itsmrjims

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3 days ago

In triplicate, set to music…

More new art incoming. Acrylic on canvas 12x12in.

#philosophy
#freedom
#consciousness
#vibes
#blah by @itsmrjims

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5 days ago

Curatorial Blurb :

There’s tension between the architecture/order, the geometric structure of the work, and the elements of excavation and accident: something constructed deliberately is then subjected to an act of destruction (or deconstruction), stripping it back to allow something partly uncontrolled to appear. This makes the painting feel simultaneously built and unearthed.

The nested forms also have a slightly archaeological / architectural quality — as though we’re looking at a site, a ruin, a diagram, or a cross-section of something that has long been buried and is now exposed. This painting is really a record of successive states: deposit, concealment, intervention, erosion, discovery. Which also causes us to consider Time; things that have gone before versus the irrepressible Now; the complex antecedents that lurk beneath the surface which have led us to this point in time.

This in turn leads us to ideas of the conscious mind versus the unconscious, the patterning being almost hypnotic in its form and repetition, drawing us from surface reality to the less understood, less comfortable strata below. Like the strange creatures which inhabit the deepest depths of our oceans, what wonders and horrors might we find when we begin to peel back the carefully-constructed veneer?
.
.
Jims x

#wednesday #hypnosis #interiordesign #vibes #blah by @itsmrjims

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7 days ago

I’m constantly trying to find new ways to show my art on this platform. Some experiments turn out tasteful, others are just plain nasty. This one was so nasty I couldn’t resist sharing.

(Whether or not it has any relevance to the actual artwork is yet to be seen, but this too could be a subject to explore at a later date.)

Temporary Title : “I Tried To Re-Invent The Wheel But Ended Up Clucking Around A Farmyard I Built In My Own Head” (2026)

Acrylic paint on canvas, 12x12in. Created by a process of heavy multi-layering and then stripping back the paint to reveal shapes and colours beneath. Subtractive. Destructive and Deconstructive. Kind of like archaeology but while painting.

“EXCAVATED FROM THE RUINS OF GOOD TASTE”

Anyway, res ipsa loquitur…

Love,
Mr. Jims x

#abstractart #spinning #colour #vibes #blah by @itsmrjims

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9 days ago

Apparently a picture says a thousand words… Well, there are 101 words here (including title), so by my calculations that makes this just over 1/10th of a picture…

Tomorrow I might get back to showing you pictures. Or, I might unleash this volume of ill-conceived poems on an indifferent/capricious world.

Till then… happy birthday if it’s your birthday today!

Jims x

#sunday #vibes #planets #space #blah by @itsmrjims

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10 days ago

Catalogue Title :

“Fool’s Gold, But Make It Complicated” (2026)

Snappy Title For People With Super Short Attention Spans :

“Fools”

Extended Title For Poseurs And Insomniacs :

“A Material Inquiry Into the Persistent Human Belief that Shiny Things Are Important… Exploring the Difference Between Gold and the Idea of Gold… After all, everything is Worth its Weight In Something… & a Weathered Relic, Recovered from Somewhere Between Heaven and the Pawn Shop, Proves the Old Adage that One Man’s Trash Could Easily Be Another Man’s Treasure…”

Excavated From the Ruins of Good Taste. Acrylic on canvas, 8 x 10in.

[Bonus Feature] Essential Playlist For People Who Think That Context Is Equally Or More Important Than The Thing Itself :

Van Halen, “Fools”; Frankie Cosmos, “Fool”; The Dodos, “Fools”; Madison Beer, “Fools”; Diane Birch, “Fools”; Grace Enger, “The Alchemist” (also “Ruin”); Lamb of God, “Ruin” (a bit heavier, but acts a bit like using a sledgehammer as an aural palate-cleanser); Paloma Faith, “Gold”; Passenger, “Fools Gold”; Jessie Murphy and Teddy Swims, “Dirty”. Throw in The Cardigans’ “Lovefool” at your own peril — try Whitesnake’s “Fool For Your Lovin’” instead if that’s where your head (or heart) is at!

Wishing you a splendid weekend ahead.

Cheers!

Jims x

#gallery #artist #metal #saturday #vibes by @itsmrjims

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12 days ago

Just riffing on some alternative title/subplot ideas — fairly tongue-in-cheek — & playing around with different ways to present these “abstracts of an abstract” visually here…

Pls give me a shout, or one of those little hearty things, if you like it!

The main catalogue title will be something to do with “Fools”. It’s a smaller piece, 8 x 10in, acrylic paint on canvas and probably some texture stuff at the start…

BTW, apologies to those who don’t like “the tease”… but the full reveal of this artwork will be in a separate post tomorrow…

Which, as those rusty synapses spark haphazardly, makes me think of poor Hamlet and his:

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

I’m sure there’s a connection, somewhere…

Love,
Jims

#gold #wealth #precious #vibes #art by @itsmrjims

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12 days ago

Catalogue Title : “The Lost Book”

Alternative Title : “The Absence of Ego Makes Digging Through Crates of Old Stuff Far More Pleasurable”

Acrylic on canvas, 8” x 10”

I had in mind a discovered ancient book caked in dust and grime, its contents unknown & mysterious, being cleaned, meticulously; a relic starting to reveal itself, as I stripped back layer after layer of paint, as much archaeologist as artist, in service of “The Thing” rather than of myself; & as it gradually emerged from aeons of being Lost & Forgotten, the anticipation of what words might be trapped inside built to a deafening crescendo…

#ego #literature #discovery #vibes #blah by @itsmrjims

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14 days ago

When you look very closely at the detail, does it give you a deeper understanding of the thing, or does it reveal a different character altogether?

Like :

same thing
viewed from multiple perspectives
exposing layers of depth
&/or
multiple personalities
and meanings?

And now, looking at this piece myself, distanced somewhat and at the same time seeing a magnified, zoomed-in view, I love the way the texture of the canvas breathes through, like pores…

(“POURS” YOU SAID? SURE, I’LL HAVE ANOTHER…!)

Happy Monday folks. Wishing you a thoughtful week ahead.

Cheers,
Jims x

#artist #gallery #abstract #vibes #blah by @itsmrjims

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17 days ago

Which Monster version do you like best? by @itsmrjims

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20 days ago

New art. Acrylic on canvas.

#trippy #vibes #creepy #gallery #blah by @itsmrjims

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24 days ago