James Padgham/ Collage Art

James Padgham is a secondary school Art teacher and practising artist. Working between assemblage and collage he is building an imaginary visual story, re-appropriating the nature of the objects he collects under the name of Lostnorfound. A childhood playfulness is inherent in his work, but this is just the surface to a practise that challenges the viewer and asks them to engage in discovering what the suggested narrative offers.

The placement of the work and the context that this is viewed offers further questions and often contradictions. The constructions from his play in the studio are situated in the world and then documented forming a tableau vivant, raising questions about the metaphorical edges of the work. Words, text, fonts and narrative all form an integral part of the ‘make do’ and playful process of creating work. Linking visual imagery with the written word as a way of forming a narrative or disrupting the linear expectation of the words to form an imaginary space for the visual and written words to exist together.

James has alluded to these as personal experiences and reflections from his experiences working in education.