A brush with aerosol art
by
Emma Masters
James
Cochran has painted everything from the welcome sign at Coober Pedy to a
self-portrait hanging in the Art Gallery of South Australia.
An accomplished artist, community arts worker and teacher, the UniSA visual arts honours and masters graduate lives and breathes his passion for painting.
This month he is preparing to travel overseas to work in Paris and New York – but his beginnings were more humble.
Cochran, aka Jimmy C, never contemplated becoming a full-time artist when he was younger, but his love of aerosol styles in his youth kept his interest in the art alive, eventually leading him to study visual arts at UniSA and teach aerosol painting workshops in the community.
Once he'd completed his studies and started working in an ArtsSA studio residency in Sydney, he began to create his signature style – combining oil painting and aerosol art.
“I was still preoccupied with the tradition of realist, oil painting during my masters degree,” he said.
“So when I set up a studio in Sydney I let it all go. It's like you build the foundation and then you can start to mess with it.
“I think being in a vibrant, busy city also helped. How people fit into the urban environment and how they find meaning in their lives seems to be a central concern in my work.”
Cochran joined UniSA as a drawing lecturer this year. However, he has been teaching for a lot longer, as a workshop leader and art coordinator, working for local councils and community groups, inspiring and helping thousands of young South Australians.
“I began coordinating aerosol workshops in about 1993 and that started a slow journey to legal mural artwork and to an education and acceptance of aerosol art as a legitimate art form,” he said.
“Most of my employment is from government funding on aerosol art projects as an anti-graffiti strategy as well as a way of giving kids on the streets today a chance to express themselves in a constructive, positive and legitimate environment.”
Cochran recently coordinated a series of workshops and the set design for Blak Nite, a showcase of Indigenous talent at Carclew Youth Arts Centre in North Adelaide during the 2005 Come Out festival.
“The workshops involved an integration of traditional imagery, animal symbols and dot style paintings, with more contemporary graffiti styles – aerosol pointillism,” he said.
The idea of fusing traditional Indigenous dot painting with the aerosol can is something he developed from collaborations with Aboriginal artists in regional SA and he said that it allowed a new phase of development.
“Aerosol pointillism was an experimental phase that has now led to a new
style, something different and unique.”
To see Cochran’s work visit
www.akajimmyc.com