Cameron Jamie

I had my first experience with Cameron Jamie’s work about a month ago at the Walker Art Center. The picture I found unfortunately does not do justice to the experience felt by physically viewing the artwork. There are many differences between the presentation in a gallery and the presentation in the photograph. Firstly, there are multiple kranky masks, posted on top of thick, dark, wooden sticks that stood about five-and-a-half feet tall. The group is aligned in a circle, facing outward toward the audience that viewed them. From my height and vantage point the masks gaze down at me, giving the masks a more powerful and superior impression. The carved facial expressions of the masks are fierce. The faces seem very distraught, frustrated, and angry. I spent a good twenty minutes walking around the circle of masks, looking at each one individually, because they are all different in their own ways, and then viewing the masks as a whole.

Cameron Jamie is a fine artist and all over the board with his mediums and materials. He has experimented with film, drawings  (known particularly for ink drawings), and sculpture. His work is very dark in nature and behavior; sometimes, his work is even a bit gory and bloody. To me, blood, gore, and horror are interesting but it can get too graphic for many audiences. Thus why I most appreciate his masks, they have that intense feeling – like one brought on by watching a gory film – but without blood, guts, and cliché angels of death. What I find great about this is it’s a feeling I get from just looking into the still face of a mask.

2006

Versus Versus, 2009-2010