James Ford

James R Ford is a conceptual artist and designer. His artworks contemplate our human needs and wants, the perils of choice, and the value of things and nothings in art and life. The search for, and generation of, meaning is also important to his practice, along with the confusion this can lead to.

James will be discussing ideas around identifying, interpreting, and creating the surreal, referencing examples throughout culture (focussing on visual art). Alongside this, James will be talking about some of his more surreal artworks over the past 17 years.

James gained his BA Hons in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent University in 2002 and completed his postgraduate studies in Fine Art at Goldsmiths (University of London) in 2005. He has exhibited widely throughout New Zealand and internationally, and in 2013 was the winner of the inaugural Tui McLauchlan Emerging Artist’s Award from the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts. He currently works as a Lead Designer at SilverStripe in Wellington.