James Fox has been volunteering at Lancaster and District Homeless Action Service for the last two years. The service works with people from many varied backgrounds where circumstance has led them to be sleeping rough or struggling to manage their own accommodation, and is committed to helping people find accommodation and learn the life skills essential for independent living and provide help and support to engage with the job market.
Inspired by his time at the Service, James decided to make his own art work relating to his time spent there, producing a series of portraits featuring a few of the regular clients. Beginning by making pencil drawings from photographs, James wanted to try to keep the individuality of the sitter whilst drawing them. His textile work usually consists of reverse appliqué and freehand machine embroidery.
James’ portraits contain tonal subtleties and he has devised a process of using netting cut into various sized circles and shades to build up the complexities in the textile portraits. He has settled on a process of bonding the net circles onto the cloth using a soldering iron to build up the required shade.
With at least 32,000 recorded homeless people in Britain, and this figure growing at an alarming rate, James uses his art as a way of acknowledging and bringing attention to this under- represented sector of society. His recent work showing some of the people at the forefront of this situation has not been produced to pile pity on them, but to celebrate them as individuals capable of displaying a richness of human values.