Process Recess Volume 1: The Art of James Jean

Jean, James, and Jean, James

ISBN 10: 0972179461 / ISBN 13: 9780972179461

Published by Adhouse Books, 2005

192 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Seller Inventory # Alibris.0013710

Synopsis:

• Process Recess collects the art of James Jean. From his travelogue-sketchbooks of Vienna, London, New York, LA and Taiwan to his finished illustrations and paintings, we get to see a side of the artist that most have not seen. James's artwork blends media such as watercolor, oils, computer work, and sketching ― all of which is collected here in a beautiful hardcover format.

Reviews: Part of a new breed of visual artists operating somewhere between the realms of cartooning and traditional fine-art illustration, Jean has yet to publish any actual comics, but his award-winning covers for comic books such as Fables have put him on the map nonetheless. Much of his best work leaps from pure illustrative representation to the bold simplicity of old comic strips, seemingly within a single line. This collection is a sampling of the last five years' worth of his rough sketchbook drawings (images overlapping each other, notes to self and diary entries scribbled on the page), as well as his most impressive finished pieces-notably the "Recess" series of digitally manipulated, enormously unsettling images of school. Chris Ware's sketchbooks seem to be as big an influence on Jean as Robert Crumb's were on Ware's. He often starts by catching poses on the fly in public places, then lets his attention wander to a meticulous depiction of the setting's architecture. Most of the juice in Jean's work, though, comes from conflating hyperreal and surreal elements: impossible, grotesque images drawn with a manga-derived hardness, or rendered casually in a way that catches the subtleties of skin texture and loose-hanging cloth.
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Bibliographic Details

Title: Process Recess Volume 1: The Art of James ...
Publisher: Adhouse Books
Publication Date: 2005
Binding: Hard cover
Condition: Very good.