Artworks
Making Believe, 2024
Test pieces for AV series incorporating cut up, manipulated and reassembled spoken word readings of books by Clara Barton, Virginia Woolf, Sigmund Freud and Henrietta Marshall plus texts from Xhi Ndubisi and Jo Manby's Passing Cloud series. Collaged and edited archive film exploring authorship, obsolescence and illusion in the information age.
Breath ○ Gathering ○ Warp, 2024
Collage on recycled perspex, 70cm x 54cm. Classical-era painted fabric drapes and folds. When does an image become abstract? What gets included and what gets omitted from the histories we tell and the maps we make?
That Sinking Feeling, 2018
With ARM. Installation, film, sound and sculpture.
‘Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, moves past the earth, cold to the existential crisis facing the planet’s inhabitants. The scout from afar is strange, as are we. In fact, as we race to understand more, we become even stranger, and so do the objects and phenomena we encounter. The search for understanding and technological advancement has led to what many consider to be a new epoch in the history of the Earth—the Anthropocene. That Sinking Feeling seeks to reflect our current predicament, the artefacts we create in our pursuit of progress, imagined futures (that may or may not contain us) and the complex emotional states we find ourselves in. ARM is a UK-based, cross-disciplinary arts practice comprising Navid Asghari, David Rogerson and James Moss.
Speechless, 2013-2023
Oil, acrylic, ink, dye, pigment, lacquer, salt, sand and sugar on canvas. Layered paintings created over 10 years including through periods of exposure to rain, snow and sun. Each new image obscures preceding compositions while retaining vestiges of earlier forms.
Botanical Magic, 2019
with Deiniol Williams and Lindsey Loughtman
Grid of backlit antique glass magic lantern slides from Manchester Museum, revealing the colonial and extractive histories embedded in its botanical collections. The images show seeds, cells, zoophytes, landscapes, diatoms, cotton production, teaching models, and real and artificial plants including cocoa beans, breadfruit, water lilies, palms and ferns.
Second Nature, 2019
with Navid Asghari
Studies have shown that not only do nature sounds (birdsong, trickling water) induce positive brain activity and reduce stress, but artificial, simulated nature sounds also have beneficial effects. For Second Nature: What is “nature” anyway?, we built a grotto of synthetic plants where speakers played real-life and synthesized nature sounds created by composer Navid Asghari. Re-introducing sounds previously absent from the city-centre venue, this installation invited visitors to consider authenticity and artificiality and what we mean by “natural/unnatural”. The real-life audio included recordings from Rae Story’s Breathing Spaces project with TLC Saint Luke’s, which maps Manchester’s tranquil spaces for people experiencing mental health problems and emotional distress.
The Wild Open Archive, 2024
In Theory ○ All Things Considered ○ Unquiet
Collage on recycled perspex, 51cm x 61cm.
Oozy, 2020
As ARM, with Navid Asghari and David Rogerson. Three channel film and sound installation and performance with references to the histories of theatre, literature and cinema. The piece is concerned with what it feels like to be living through a period of intensifying alienation, and the tangled emotional states we find ourselves in. Staged at The Holden Gallery. Curated by Zoe Watson.
Feint, 2015
with Chan-yang Kim, book
“Feint draws from a wide array of conceptual influences, from the tempting immersions of Roger Hiorns to Ernesto Neto’s attempts to connect the interior and exterior, and Tacita Dean’s projections and landscapes – the works position painting within a cinematic context, oversized and animated. As with Cindy Sherman’s desire to “make something out of the culture”, Moss’s work examines itself – the viewing is disrupted by the constantly changing light, the artifice slips.” – Fuse Art Space
“This is one of the greatest joys of Moss’s paintings, they require of us (and reward!) the study of every corner of change and movement across the surface… each intersection of colour; each gradation of form.” – Susanna Caudwell
The 72-page book documenting James Moss's project at Fuse Art Space, Feint, features 100 photos of work from the exhibition by Chan-yang Kim, plus an essay on the work by Rowland Hill and an introduction by Sarah Faraday.
Untied States, text, 2014
50 entries from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, software-translated five times to create space for rethinking the vocabulary around psychology, mental health and emotional distress. A new version of Untied States formed the basis of a group project with 50 contemporary artists, each paired with one entry, in The Portico Library’s 2020 exhibition, Talking Sense: The changing vocabulary of mind and brain.
The British Psychological Society said of the DSM: “the general public are negatively affected by the continued and continuous medicalisation of their natural and normal responses to their experiences; responses which undoubtedly have distressing consequences… but which do not reflect illnesses so much as normal individual variation”.
Nil (detail)
625 8cm x 8cm digital paintings, 2004. Before social media, Wikipedia, or AI image generation, digital painting already allowed us to explore the parameters of our aesthetic impulses, and art’s relationships with time and productivity. In 2001, as our world of visual and information overload was emerging, I began work on this series of small digital paintings. Creating a few of these images each week for the following three years served to test my own ideas about taste, beauty, outmodedness, and obsolescence in art.
Bio
Artist
Venues and broadcasts including ARTE, TF1, BBC, Cité de la Mode et du Design, Islington Mill, Manchester Art Gallery, Fuse Art Space, St John on Bethnal Green, Bluedot, Festival Number 6, Bristol Folk House and Greenroom. 2004–present
Exhibitions & events
Oozy, ARM, the Holden Gallery, 2020
That Sinking Feeling, ARM, Bankley Studios & Gallery, 2018
Samarbeta, Ex-Easter Island Head / Crime Scene, Islington Mill / Supersonic, 2017
Turning Blue, Ben Myers, David McLean & Carolyn Curtis-Magri, The Portico Library, 2017
Northern Abstracts, Saul Hay Gallery, 2017
Mother, Bluedot, 2016
James Moss, The Adaptable Gallery, TAG, Deansgate, 2015
Feint, Fuse Art Space, 2015
Video Jam, Manchester Art Gallery, 2014
CUE: Art in Manchester, Piccadilly Place, 2013
James Moss: New Works, Bristol Folk House, 2011
Mind the Gap: Less is More Projects, Cite de la Mode et du Design, 2010
Curator, Contemporary Art
The Lowry, Arts Council England NPO and Greater Manchester’s most-visited cultural attraction.
2023–2024
Exhibitions & Programmes Curator
Site-responsive exhibitions and projects to recontextualise The Portico Library’s 18th- and 19th-century collection.
2015–2023
Learning Consultant
Coordinating exhibitions by young people in 70+ UK venues for The World Reimagined. Lead artist Yinka Shonibare. Collaborating with the University of Sheffield for Festival of the Mind.
2022–2023
Exhibitions, curator/producer
Going to the Match on Tour
LS Lowry, 2024
Memory Stone
Nikta Mohammadi, 2024
Making Up
Jo Lathwood, 2024
Refloresta!
Maria Nepomuceno, 2021
Fun & Games: Playtime, past & present, 2021
Birungi Kawooya, Apapat Jai-in Glynn, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Le Ha Thu, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Gray Wielebinski, Hope Strickland, Polly Tayarachakul,
What it is to be here: Colonisation & resistance, 2020
Helen Idle, Rene Kulitja, Steve Dixon, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Lowitja Institute and Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council,
Talking Sense: The changing vocabulary of mind and brain 2020. Fifty artists. Fifty minds. Fifty artworks in paint, film, drawing, sculpture and print
Second Nature: What is ‘nature’ anyway? 2019
Navid Asghari, Jackie Chettur, Oliver East, Jessica El Mal, Louise Hewitt, Ruth Murray, Joanna Whittle, Amy Lawrence, Journeys Festival International, Venture Arts and Let’s Keep Growing,
Making the News: Reading between the lines, from Peterloo to Meskel Square, 2019
Robel Temesgen, Polyp, Schlunke & Poole.
Fancy Pants, 2019
Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou, Ruby Kirby, Lindsey Mendick, Camille Smithwick, House of Ghetto.
BiblioTech: from bookshelf to big data, 2018
Dan Hays, Jane Lawson, Claire Tindale.
In So Many Words: Roget’s Thesaurus & the power of language, 2018
Jez Dolan, Sarah Rowland Hill, Jonathan Hitchen.
The Things That Look Back, 2018. Nicola Dale,
Bittersweet: Legacies of Slavery & Abolition in Manchester, 2017
Lubaina Himid, Keith Piper, Mary Evans plus items from Manchester Art Gallery & Quarry Bank Mill, co-curated with Dr Natalie Zacek.
Recollection: Memory & time, 2017. Saima Rasheed, Alnoor Mitha, Maggie Hargreaves, Leo Robinson, Stacey Coughlin.
Cut Cloth: Contemporary Textiles & Feminism, 2017
Sarah-Joy Ford and artists Tilleke Schwartz, Wendy Huhn, Orly Cogan… + items from People’s History Museum & The Pankhurst Centre.
Made In Translation, 2017
Alice Kettle: Stephen Dixon, Louise Adkins... with Manchester Metropolitan University School of Arts & Humanities.
Be Strong, Live Happy & Love: 350 Years of Paradise Lost, 2017
Chloë Manasseh, Ilona Kiss, Kate Shaw, Helen Mather + items from Chethams Library.
Many Splendoured Thing, 2016
Raphael Fonseca and Gê Orthof. Manchester School of Art, HOME and Prêmio Marcantonio Vilaça/Plano Cultural.
Non-Places of Intelligence, 2016
Shreepad Joglekar.
The Four Guardians of the Sky, 2016. Ousama Lazkani,
Build a Wor(l)d with ‘ing’, 2015
Helen Wheeler.
CUE: Art in Manchester, 2013
Publications, talks, awards, commissions
Old Tools > New Masters ≠ New Futures, panel discussion with Contact Young Company and Young Identity, Manchester Art Gallery, 2019
Bankley Open, selection panel judging prizewinner and runners up, 2018
The Sea is History & Lettres du Voyant artist Q&A, HOME, 2018
Cut Cloth: Contemporary Textiles & Feminism, PO Publishing, 2017
Made In Translation published by MMU/The Portico Library, 2017
Future Legacies symposium, University of Leeds, 2017
Many-Splendoured Thing, Raphael Fonseca/Manchester Met, 2016
Process artist/curator talk, Bankley Studios & Gallery, 2016
Feint monograph, pub. Fuse, 2015
ArtWork Atelier project space, residency, 2013
Press & media
Refloresta!, Embroidery magazine, 2021
Fun & Games, Mancunian Matters, 2021
Colonisation and Resistance, Journal of Museum Ethnography, 2020
Bittersweet, Northern Soul, 2017
Coming In From The Cold, Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust, 2017
Be Strong, Live Happy & Love, Northern Soul, 2017
Most promising act, Sounds from the Other City, The Independent, 2016
Mother, TF1, 2016
Best of 2015, BBC 6 Music, 2015
Métropolis artist spotlight, ARTE, 2015
Cue: Art in Manchester, Corridor8, 2013
James Moss at Brahm Gallery, The Independent, 2011
Events, producer/programmer
ማን እያወራ እንዳለ ይመልከቱ - Look who’s Talking, interpretive performance by Binyam Zenebe Andargie, Tsige Haile and Masresha Getahun-Wondmu, co-produced with Nuria Lopez de la Oliva Mena, 2019
Fancy Pants Fancy Party, performance by House of Ghetto, choreography by Darren Pritchard, wearable artworks by Ruby Kirby, 2019
Gut Healing, interactive performance composed and directed by Amy Lawrence, with Henrietta Phoebe Dunn, Selena Laverne Daye, Alison Erika Forde, Diana Tap, Harold Offeh, Elmi Ali, 2017
Education & training
ArtUK & Manchester Art Gallery: Caring for Your Sculpture Collection, 2020
British Museum: Resilient Heritage mentorship, 2019
Common Cause Foundation & Manchester Museum: Embedding Shared Values, 2019-2020
Touring Exhibitions Group & Wellcome Collection: Preparing to Borrow, 2018
Manchester School of Art: BA (Hons) Fine Art Painting with Art history, 2004
Hertford Regional College: BTEC Diploma Foundation Art & Design 2001
City & Guilds: Diploma in Life Drawing 2001
