James Kearns, Resident Artist Lecture 1964

James Kearns gives a lecture at Skowhegan talking about his artistic practice which is rooted in an exploration in three dimensional form, which Kearns seeks to execute through painting and sculpture. For Kearns, abstract painting has also always been important to his thinking, specifically with the remnants it has had with figuration, whether that figuration is animals, minerals, or mechanical formulations. Kearns also questions the importance of adjusting the formal elements of his work; whether it is the pigment, line, colour, texture, form, or space; in order to better understand how to give his work multidimensional personalities. Kearns goes further on his work, commenting on how this re-adjustment of formal elements, and ultimately the re-adjustment of the representation of his work allows his paintings to demand that they represent something, and demand that his work have titles that are also intense. Kearns ends his lecture stating that the feeling of demanding intensity he seeks to inject in his work is a feeling that he can tap into being at Skowhegan as well.