James B Webster’s sculptures draw on Classical ideals to explore contemporary sensibilities, such as a series of busts – the quintessential Grand Tour collector’s item. But where the antique tradition referenced men of gravitas from the public sphere, James questions this projection of machismo by depicting contemporary figures in fleeting moments of thought. His subjects are anonymous characters in states of everyday vulnerability. This contrast between hard exterior and fragile interior worlds is carried through in his materials, by combining concrete with porcelain. In a similar way, his porcelain sculpture of two Greek Wrestlers carries all the connotations of Classical prowess, but also echoes a gentle eroticism and an underlying fragility in the nature of its material.
