About

I make work about what it feels like to carry cultures — plural — in your body. I am my parents. I am my grandparents. I am my ancestors. My work is where my ancestors speak.

Bout Dat Life (Studio) is an Atlanta-based contemporary art practice by Michael James exploring Afro-Caribbean identity, rhythm, and cultural memory through layered abstraction, expressive figuration, and material-based painting systems.

The work is built through layered painting processes that create physical surface depth, raised textures, and light-reactive elements that respond to environment and proximity. These material systems extend painting into a tactile experience where image becomes object, and surface carries memory and accumulation.

The practice moves between abstraction and symbolic figuration, where identity is constructed through rhythm, gesture, and layered visual systems rather than literal representation. A decade of professional practice in UX Design and Front-End Development is not background — it is foundation. That structural discipline informs the logic, sequencing, and compositional architecture of every canvas.

The practice unfolds through evolving collections: Ancestors Chat, Rhythm of the Drum, and Cityscape Souls.

Available for acquisition, exhibition, and curatorial inquiry.