The Sublime Expression of Nature in the Artwork of James Tapscott

Art is an expression of nature, human nature, our desire and capacity to translate our experience through other mediums. Art turns the ineffable into the symbolic, crystallizing time, memory, and esoteric concepts. What is created by nature on its own terms is far beyond human capacity. With all humility, artist James Tapscott enables the land to express itself, re-framing our relationship with nature by creating sublime, heightened experiences. Using minimalist interventions, often steel, light, water, and materials found on site, Tapscott builds atmospheric phenomena that make weather patterns, air flows, reflections, and other hidden aspects of nature more visible and fantastic.

Tapscott began his career in the 1990s as a painter in remote Perth, Australia. After a decade of painting, he was drawn to create work outdoors, inspired by installation artists of the US and abroad. He began working in remote locations to avoid the red tape of public work in the city. Over ten years of using nature as his studio, Tapscott developed a language and library of materials that expresses his sense of site and potential.

One of his most popular installations is the “Arc: ZERO” series, based around a “simple” circular composition. Steel, light, and mist form a glowing arc, emerging from the horizon like a ring of sun blocked by a passing eclipse. In some locations, water beneath creates a mirror image, a complete circle, like a black hole or portal to another dimension. “Arc’s” mist pours off a static steel curve creating a passage through a low-flying cloud, shaping, and being shaped by wind, temperature, air pressure, and elevation. A portal creates an entryway and point of transition. The circle is a powerful symbol for cycles, wholeness, and completion. In Omachi, Japan, “Arc: ZERO” for a time circled the passageway to an old Buddhist Temple. It has been seen in temporary and permanent installations in Taiwan, Japan, the US, and Australia, with forthcoming projects in Singapore and Seoul, and at Green Box Festival in the US (Colorado).

To create outdoor, public works with minimal ecological impact, Tapscott uses purposefully simple technology and materials. We can consider his body of work a natural evolution of the land arts movement, with influences from lighting and sculpture installation from the 60s, 70s, and onward. Rather than emphasizing man’s control over nature, the artist draws attention to the subtleties that can only be uncovered through stillness and listening. Tapscott’s process benefits from time spent on site and deep research in nature.

We can see the influence of painting in his composition if we consider the site to be a canvas. His relationship to materials is aimed at eliminating unnecessary elements, dropping preconceived ideas, relating to local natural phenomena, and acting as a channel for that locality. From site emerges concept, and from concept emerges materials and methods. “Soft” materials like light and mist allow for an ever-changing, visceral experience.

Tapscott’s “Transference Field” (2009) creates a through-line to the “Lightning Fields” of Walter de Maria (1977). Rather than channeling storm bolts, Tapscott uses poles to anchor loose fiber-optic cables that express the movement of the winds, gentle and tempestuous. The underlying grid acts as a visual control and analogue for the body as it perceives sensations already felt on the skin. A new, embodied experience connects visual and felt senses. Tapscott’s work often expresses the chaotic movement of nature in contrast to the order we place on it.

James Tapscott’s work creates objects of beauty and flexible function that can enhance any space. Some of his most iconic works are ephemeral, appearing in festivals as temporary architecture. Other pieces are installed in remote locations, like the salt lake, Lake Tyrell (Victoria), where Tapscott develops many of his concepts. Photos capture the dynamic range of environments and conditions, materials, and metaphors in his body of work.

More permanent sculptures like Diaphanous Bloom (2018, Shenzhen, China), show how the artist’s view of nature complements the architecture of the city. His abstraction of a life-sized tree, stories high, is created from linear steel elements that circle and lean together, mist forming a ghost canopy. The technique draws from elements of Ikebana, a Japanese method of flower arranging. Minimal light changes once in a blue moon, pink for the start of cherry blossom season, maintain an element of surprise and an ongoing narrative for locals. The tree points to nature’s absence as much as its presence in the city, making the most of an angular environment, creating an aliveness through mists and airflow, calling viewers into observation and presence.

In more recent years, collaboration has influenced Tapscott’s work, teaming up with skilled specialists to develop large-scale projects and more advanced processes. A residency at Colorado University led to a macro-photo series of ice core samples 400,000 years old from deep under Antarctica. These light-box prints will be on display later this year. Explorations with new materials have generated forthcoming festival exhibits in Taiwan (Jinquashi Land Art Festival) and the US (Gleam Festival). A photo exhibition telling the story of the “Arc” series will be on display in Colorado Springs during Greenbox Arts Festival, where Tapscott will be in residence this year.

Using minimalist materials and a light footprint, artist James Tapscott shows that experiential and high-impact art does not have to be heavy or imposing. Tapscott’s sophisticated formal choices draw out intricacies of our direct connection with nature, creating a sense sublime, connecting audiences to an experience of something larger. In an age where we cannot afford to ignore human impact on the natural world, Tapscott’s work appeals to our sense of hope and potential for the future to be renewed with carefully curated acts of letting go.