James Powditch creates mixed media works incorporating sculpture, assemblage and painting, while integrating his love of cinema and architecture. Born in 1966 in Paddington, Sydney, to Jenny Magrath and artist Peter Powditch, he lived with his mother in Sydney and the Sunshine Coast, Queensland from 1967. Powditch recalls that he spent his childhood in a beanie assembling lego in front of the television, absorbing cinematic influences as much as he loved building practical assemblages.
From 1979-84 Powditch attended North Sydney Boys High School. During his years at school, he constantly went to the cinema, even figuring out ways to slip into the R-rated screenings. Powditch’s cinephilia paid off, informing the Super 8 film he shot for his final year Higher School Certificate major work. In 1987 Powditch commenced studies in Visual Arts at the City Art Institute (CAI now College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales) where he took a particular interest in film heroes such as Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott, and Francis Coppola.
Powditch left the CAI in 1987 to work as a general store hand at the Ray Hughes Gallery in Surry Hills, Sydney. It was during this time that he was inspired to begin building assemblage type artworks. In 1990 he left the gallery to travel to Europe, living in Spain, Greece, England and finally, France, where he gained work on the building of Euro Disney on the outskirts of Paris.
Powditch continued his work abroad until 1992 when he returned to Australia where he moved to Newtown and converted his lounge room into a studio space. Following his return Powditch began work for the Sydney Theatre Company and The Australian Museum as a set and props builder. He worked for the companies for five years, acquiring a wide range of visual and building skills, many of which helped shape his constructed assemblage artwork.
From the early 1990s Powditch showed his works at small artist run spaces and festivals such as Level 2 Gallery in Newtown (1998 and 1999), Walking the Streets Festival, Newtown (1993, 1994, 1998 and 2000), 'Sculpture by the Sea’ (2002), and the Tamworth Country Music Festival (1998). It was not until early 1997 that he teamed up with friend Rodney Simmons, a painter, at TAP Gallery in Darlinghurst for his first significant exhibition.
For two years Powditch continued producing works for joint exhibitions in artist run spaces. In early 1999 he decided to travel abroad, exploring Canada, the United States of America and Mexico. While in the US, Powditch visited Fallingwater, an influential house from 1936-37 designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The visit to this site became the major influence for Powditch’s first commercial show on return to Australia later in 1999. Held at Sydney’s Dickerson Gallery in Woollahra, the exhibition, comprising a range of architectonic sculptural pieces not unlike architectural models, were inspired by various projects designed by Wright.
While Powditch was influenced by building and architecture, it was his love of cinema which became the greater influence on his work. In 2000, he held the exhibition 'Widescreen’, followed by two film based shows in 2001, 'Technicolor’ and 'Cinemascope’. The titles of his works at the time – Parallax View, Zabriskie Point, Manchurian Candidate, The Old Man and the Sea, and The Planet of the Apes – were borrowed from films significant to the artist.
Having once enjoyed the resourcefulness of putting together theatre and museum sets from a wide range of materials, Powditch began making assemblages using a mix of new and recycled building materials such as timber, plastic, metal, fabric and linoleum, much of which he found strewn along Newtown’s backstreets and abandoned warehouses. In 2001, after purchasing a 640sqm 1950s clothes factory in Marrickville and gutting and redesigning of the interior, Powditch had a plentiful supply of old building material from which to make his work. In his new space there were two separate studios, one for himself, the other for his partner, Diane Adair, a graphic designer.
In 2003, thirteen years after he had left to travel to Europe, Powditch renewed his connection with the Ray Hughes Gallery, becoming an exhibiting artist at the gallery. He also took opportunities to assist the packing and installation crew at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In the same year, Powditch and his father, Peter, held a joint exhibition, 'The Powditch and Powditch Show’ (Ray Hughes Gallery), exploring their differing styles, if not dissimilar qualities in their workmanship, given that Peter also uses recycled materials. In 2003 Powditch held his fourth cinematic exhibition, 'Spaghetti Western’. As the title suggests, his works responded to the genre of Italian westerns from the 1960s and 1970s and paid tribute to director Sergio Leone, one of Powditch’s cinematic heroes.
In 2005 Powditch was awarded the ABN AMRO Emerging Artist Prize for the work Greensleeves of Home II; in the same year he won the Blake Prize for Religious Art for God is in the Detail. Ray Hughes Gallery hosted Powditch’s 2005 film-inspired exhibition 'Boo!’ which drew on films such as: To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice & Men and Lord of the Flies. The exhibition was to mark the end of Powditch’s long running association with Ray Hughes; he left the Gallery shortly afterwards in 2006.
During a relatively quiet year in 2006, Powditch continued to work with cinematic themes supplemented by thoughts on the environment and human civilization, combining these investigations into his 2007 shows. 'It’s the End of the World as We Know it (And I Feel Fine)’ at the Finders Street Gallery, and 'Enjoy Civilization’ (Defiance Gallery at the Seymour Centre, University of Sydney) explored issues of environmental greed, consumerism and trade as well as continuing to acknowledge cinema. 'End of the World’ included the painted assemblage Butterfly Effects, which was to become the winning piece in the 2007 Mosman Art Prize. During the same year Pulp – Show us your Map of Tassie was Highly Commended in the Paddington Art Prize.
In 2008 Powditch’s portrait of actor, Aden Young was hung in the Archibald prize, his first inclusion into the show. The following year Powditch was again accepted into the Archibald with a tribute to his father.
His work is held in the collections of the Ballarat Regional Art Gallery, Victoria, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney, New England Regional Art Gallery, Armidale, Tweed River Art Gallery and Murwillumbah.
- Writers:
- De Lorenzo, Catherine
Note: Dr De Lorenzo is an art historian and teaches in the Faculty of the Built Environment, University of New South Wales
Cox, Nick
Note: Nick Cox is a student of Landscape Architecture at University of New South Wales
- Date written:
- 2009
- Last updated:
- 2011
- Status:
- peer-reviewed
