James Douglas Fils-Aimè was born and raised in East New York, Brooklyn. He resides in Bed Stuy.

My project is realized through a commitment to painting and image-making, involving woodwork and sculpture to realize the art object. I also engage in curatorial work to nurture art and artists in the broader community.

My practice includes introspection, research, and inquiry into History and art history. I give myself space for synthesis and analysis of the current moment and use these tools to make my own statements in visual form.

We think in images and words. Thoughts vary in clarity, from crystallized and clear to opaque and obscure. Some are fleeting like a scent in the breeze, while others are turbulent like a maelstrom. Painting is both a way of thinking and a way of acting .

To paint a portrait is to look deeply. I explore myself, other subjects, and society at large through this process. Recently I’ve been making many portraits, some of myself, some invented and some of other individuals. The self portraits are the result of a mindful practice, starting with stillness and coming into contact with self, place and time. As a point of clarification it isn’t that I come into contact with my state and then make a drawing which reflects or illustrates that state; instead I come into contact with my state and then I look in the mirror and draw myself. These portraits provide a trace of the actions I take in time and are an echo of my being. The portrait is a hyperobject, recording not just a likeness but also a state of mind and spirit. T

The portraits offer the viewer some time to contemplate the hierarchy of social technologies at play in the world today and their place within that system of things. I try to build empathy using the phenomenology of the seeing.

The interpretations of a work of art are myriad. The assessment of the stranger is myopic and bipolar. Knowledge of self is of the essence.