Cameron Jamie operates in a liminal space where the strange becomes familiar and the familiar strange. Known for his ability to explore the psychological, cultural, and personal forces that shape identity, the California-born artist’s multidisciplinary approach spans film, drawing, sculpture, and printmaking. His work, often unsettling, always engrossing, engages with themes of folklore, ritual, and the subconscious.
Although he’s been based in Paris since 2000, Jamie’s work reflects his upbringing in the sprawling, surreal Southern California landscape where subculture and consumer culture collide.
“There was a sense of displacement from as far as I can remember,” he says. “I looked at my surroundings and point of view of the world very differently than the others around me. I was quiet and introverted, and I spent a lot of my youth to seek refuge at the public library after school where I’d go to explore, looking and reading books, magazines and listen to vinyl albums on headphones in a small listening booth. My access to the outside world back then very was much filtered through magazines, cinema, television and especially, radio culture.”
For Jamie, the mechanism of creativity started from imagining an alternative reality to real-life existence.
“Back then many of the cultural figures I was interested in were still around and quite active in Los Angeles,” he says. “One could go to a Charles Bukowski or Jack Kirby book signing event, a Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose performance, or see Sun Ra or Screamin’ Jay Hawkins play at the Palomino Club.”
Over the past two decades Jamie has expanded his visual vocabulary by pushing artistic boundaries further with artist books, printmaking, drawing, painting and sculptural practices.
Jamie’s interest in ceramics led him to experiment with unorthodox approaches and techniques, pushing the technical conventions traditionally associated with the medium. In recent years, his exploration of printmaking and limited-edition works has provided another dimension to his practice, offering collectors and audiences a more accessible way to engage with his art.
CAMERON JAMIE - Pinky Blues, 2024
Pinky Blues, 2024 - photography Garrett Carroll
That dimension is evident in a new Phaidon and Artspace edition, Pinky Blues,2024, a17-color silkscreen on Saunders Waterford 425 gsm paper measuring 11 x 8.5 inches. It is an edition of 15, each signed and numbered on the back. It is $1,500 unframed.
Pinky Blues, 2024 features expressive gestural linework and a vibrant interplay of colors that seem to emerge from the depths of the human psyche. Each signed and numbered print comes with a special signed hardback edition of Jamie’s new Contemporary Artist Series book published by Phaidon.
Major solo exhibitions of Jamie’s work have taken place in institutions and museums such as the Kunsthalle Zurich; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Museum der Moderne Salzburg; and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Jamie’s films have been screened in festivals worldwide and he was the subject of major retrospectives at the Rotterdam International Film Festival; Cineteca Nacional Mexico, Mexico City; and the 46th Festival Internacional de Cine de Gijón, Spain.
Cameron Jamie signing Pinky Blues, 2024 - photography Nir Arieli
Pinky Blues, 2024 is released in conjunction with a Phaidon monograph on Cameron Jamie, the first comprehensive study on the work of an aesthetic outlier and artistic maverick whose artworks have been challenging categorizations and conventions for more than three decades.
We asked Cameron a handful of questions about the new edition.
Tell us about your thinking behind the title of the new edition. The new print edition is titled Pinky Blues, 2024. I saw both words inside of my sketchbook randomly on two separate pages where I keep lists of words that I write down. I liked the tension and meaning that the two words referenced both with color and mood in the artwork. That sounded harmonious to me, like a Yin and Yang.
Pinky Blues, 2024 - photography Nir Arieli
What sort of state of mind were you in when you made the original work? I don’t remember too much. But the original Pinky Blues drawing I made just wrote itself out with the building up and destructive layering of materials until it felt finished. I make all of my drawings, paintings and sculptures intuitively without using any formulaic processes or sketches, so I’m always working and approaching each artwork differently. I am constantly teaching myself to learn and unlearn art making techniques and it never feels dull for me.
Cameron Jamie holding Pinky Blues, 2024 - photography Nir Arieli
What sort of thought processes do you go through in choosing the work that will become an edition? I’ve never made a complex multi-colored silkscreen edition from a pre-existing artwork before. My challenge and interest to make Pinky Blues, 2024 into a print edition was the curiosity to see if it could be possible to replicate the density and subtle layers of color and lines using the hand-made silkscreen process.
Master printer Keigo Takahashi who made the 17- color Pinky Blues, 2024 print edition did an extraordinary job to capture and transcend the detailed mood and energy from the original drawing into a hand-made print edition. I’m still blown away by the meticulous craftsmanship and quality of the print that Keigo masterfully created as an edition. It’s a beauty.
Master printer Keigo Takahashi with Cameron Jamie - photography Nir Arieli
Take a closer look at the edition here. And check out the new Phaidon Contemporary Artist Series book featuring an essay by Ralph Rugoff and an artist interview by Philippe Vergne, here.
