JAMES MATHERS
Andy Warhol launched the 19 year-old Mathers into an international wild ride of multi-dimensional proportions. He went on to become an instrumental participant, creator and leader of groundbreaking art movements and collectives, most notably in New York City, Los Angeles, Dublin, and Bali, Indonesia.
But it was his earlier experiences that paved the road to Warhol and informed his life’s work. He grew up in the 1970’s esoteric culture of California’s Topanga Canyon, practically raised by renowned channelers and infamous gurus. Growing up with peers such as Robert Downey Jr. and Billy Zane, in a cocktail of spiritual explorers, Hollywood success stories, controversial artists and charlatans, Mathers’ idiosyncratic worldview developed in a unique and unprecedented fashion. This was augmented by institutional experimentation with amphetamines, sensory deprivation and shock treatment in his early childhood, which had opened his perception to other realities and deep levels of spirituality.
In 1984, by the time Mathers was 20, his paintings were being exhibited in key cities and galleries throughout Europe, maintaining particularly long and prodigious relationships with Turske & Turske Gallery in Zurich and Studio Marconi in Milan. While continuing to return to his home Los Angeles, Mathers spent prolonged periods in Paris, Indonesia and Italy to focus on a number of video and performance exhibitions. After appearing opposite Bridget Fonda in the cult art film Aria, James moved to to County Wicklow in Ireland, where he worked in almost total isolation, recuperating from his physically and emotionally demanding lifestyle. This time and place was to deeply affect his art and his life.
Further adventures and accomplishments include writing and directing the feature film King Of the Korner starring Saul Williams, authoring the seminal graphic novel The Children’s Guide To Astral Projection, spearheading the infamous “Rodeo Grounds” alternative art colony of Topanga Beach, where Hampton Fancher wrote the screenplay for Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking film Blade Runner, while magick, performance art and lifestyle manifested in ways similar to what the mainstream has come to understand as “Burning Man Culture”. Mathers designed and executed several nightclubs, including the anarchist performance troupe, Lab Rats, with other underground luminaries including Norton Wisdom, Zam, Lonnie Sterling, and Stars. He also founded several art movements, including Crap Art™ and the PS/TA (“Psycho Iridescent Space Time Agency”,“our undeniable alternative to NASA”) with long time collaborator Herwig Maurer.
Currently, Mathers resides in Los Angeles and continues to explore the boundaries of what exactly constitutes “real” vs “fake”.