Someone once asked me when I was preparing to get ready for a masquerade party, why I liked "playing the fool?" My immediate response to this pejorative question was a feeling of shame. But after some introspection and a few years of added maturity, I feel "playing the fool" is a positive aspect of the human condition, it is risking to go beyond one's self. As a painter I am always taking risks to move to another plateau, going beyond myself. It allows me to create something which is a new "other". The new costume allows one to be "other" whether by accident or by plan, one becomes more than oneself. It is a transformational moment, just as rich in nature as the moments arrived at through meditation or prayer. Similarly for me painting is "playing the fool". The foolish moment comes when I arrive at that point in my work when I feel I have given form to something that existed earlier in my mind, in my being. I am willing to risk presenting this as a work, the "other". It is that moment when the work becomes a reality, "flesh and blood" so to speak, an extension of me. My work is the product of those moments, the exploration of playing the fool..

About The Artist

James Paradis, 76, graduated from the Mass College of Art with a BFA in the spring of 2005 after having begun his studies at the college in his late sixties. His first major solo show in 2003 was at the French Library and Cultural Center of Boston. He has shown at the Copley Society of Boston, Granite Shore Gallery and the Court Yard Gallery.

He has exhibited in Auvillar, France where he was invited as a guest artist of the Centre d’Exchange Cultural d’Auvillar in 2002 and 2003.

In 2005 he was in a two man show at the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. Roger Hankins, curator. Also in 2005 he was juried into the 10th Annual National Invitation Exhibit at St. Johns University in Jamaica, New York as well as selected to be part of the National Prize show of the Cambridge Art Association.

Reviews of his work have appeared in “Art New England”, “Art Scope” and the Boston Globe.

In 2006 and 2007 he was invited to be part of a group show at 38 Cameron Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts and into the National Juried show “New Art 06” at the Kingston Gallery, Boston.

New Art 06 is the third National Invitational Juried Show in the United States that he has been selected to show his work in two years. Curators who have selected his work have been John Thompson, Director of MassMocca and Susan Greenberg of the Yale University Art Department.

An installation piece entitled “Say It Isn’t So” is currently on display at 46 Waltham Street, Boston. Another work entitled “Barriers” is installed in the reception center of the Moakley Building at the Boston Medical Center as part of their permanent collection.

In 2009 the Khaki Gallery of Boston exhibited his work in a solo show entitled “Inside – Out Outside – In”.

James Paradis
284 Marlborough St.
(Studio 303a 46 Waltham Street.)
Boston, Ma 02116.
617.267.8886
paradisja@aol.com

Résumé

James Paradis' Résumé (pdf, 34k)

Reviews