James Gobel's figurative works respond to art history and popular culture in both subject and media. Fashion, sexual identity, and portrayals of the male form throughout history all influence the large, brightly dressed and stylized men in his works. His use of felt instead of paint connects his art to feminist and gay artists of the 1970s who also used fabric, and at the same time adds a tactile sense of softness and texture to his already rich subject matter.
Source: News, January February March, 2012.
Canvas (two canvases, each@): 108 × 66 in. (274.3 × 167.6 cm)
Images (1)
Audio (1)
James Gobel (American, born 1972)
The Problem of Leisure, What to do For Pleasure, 2011
Run Time: 2:28
Recorded by Mia Farrell, Museum Educator / May 2020
The Problem of Leisure, What to do For Pleasure—it’s a great question and also the title of a piece created in 2011 by artist James Gobel. In this work we can see three figures, large, burly, mustached men circling a bright red and yellow chair in what appears an intense game of musical chairs. It’s that moment, down to two chairs, three players and most of us can physically recall that gleeful tension. The men are decked out in brightly colorful, layered, clothing and accessories—clashing, patterned, and adorned. They capture our attention by taking up space; the three nearly filling the massive 9 x 11 foot canvas. Contrasting their environment, a mostly white, chic, domestic setting—stylized, modern, and minimal. Through the thin vertical windows behind the men, we see both city and mountain scape; it is evening. All of these highly detailed elements speak so much to who the men might be, where they are, and what they’re doing; creating a scene, a narrative never found in art history.
Though this work is on canvas it is meticulously constructed not of paint but of felt, of fabric. Born in 1972 in Portland, Oregon, James Gobel was pulled to art by an attraction to conceptualism and performance. He developed his techniques for creating these lovingly, playful and soft odes to his queer Bear culture in the mid-1990s. Starting with a photograph, Gobel sketches the image on the canvas, it is then outlined in yarn and filled, like a mosaic in with intricately cut pieces of felt. In making these works he evokes cuddly, approachable, warm and fuzzy feels around a subject he wants to give visibility. His work, combining masculine and feminine materials and imagery, celebrates the fun-loving aspects of gay culture. The Problem of Leisure, What to do For Pleasure asks us how do we connect to our culture? When we have free time, do we seek pleasure, connection, and enjoyment? Are we having fun? How we spend our time and physically present ourselves is a part of who we are, so who are we? We look at the figures in this painting and think about identity, how do we connect to our own identity, and how do we connect to others as they express theirs?
