Issue No 17
1985 STUDIO

Succumbing to Sin : James Concannon’s Plan for Improving the Breed

BY Kaitlyn Parks


Dark Cut-Outs, cardboard & newspaper. Typeface lifted from periodicals, the Book of Common Prayer. Xerox'd photocopies of nude bodies, in some form of repose.

 


GLORY HOLE 2016 : Painter/Firebrand James Concannon

 

James Concannon splays open the shadows & draws back the curtains on moments of base carnal instincts, when human passion is reduced to prophylactic detritus & the tell-tale stains of bodily fluid.

 


Detail, GLORY HOLE installation, SPRING BREAK ART SHOW 2016.

 

 


COMMUNION OF THE SICK 6.50 x 8.5” Mixed Media 2016

 

 

HOLY EGGS 23” x 35” Mixed Media 2016

The results of his work create a tunnel-vision, vignetted focus, devoted to the obscene, the blasphemous, and the extreme.

 


NUN FUCKER 25” x 34” x 3” Mixed Media 2016 / Original

 

 


GETTING THE MAX OUT OF BEING A GAY SEX SYMBOL 6”x 4” Mixed Media 2015

 

 


METAL GLORY HOLE 16.5” x 20” Mixed Media 2016
 

 

Creating a self-contained immersion of Hell, he surrounds himself with sexually charged mementos and battles with the notion of obsession.

 


SEXUAL VICTORY 7” x 10.75” x 7.5” 2016

 


WE ARE RIPENING IN THE ALLEYS 12” x 22” Mixed Media 2016

 


CURSE OF THE BLOOD BEASTS 13” x 16” Mixed Media 2016


 

We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not spiritual since sin rules me as if I were its slave.
I do not understand the things I do. I do not do what I want to do, and I do the things I hate.

 

--- Romans 7: 14-16. 

 


BLESS ME FATHER I AM SIN 18” x 24” Mixed Media 2016

 

 

IMPROVING THE BREED 8.75” x 19” x 1” Mixed Media 2016

 


"In 2007 I was living in a tent with a crack head named John,
in the Ballona wetlands of Los Angeles. One day he came home,
having just hitched a ride with this porn-addicted,
self described "jesus lover" who was living out of his van.
Deep in prose, as John unveiled his last half hour,
my mind could not help but imagine this man's self-created, self-contained hell.
A perfect illustration of human duality
--- the war within oneself. "

 


SAINT SEMEN 7” x 18” x 5” Mixed Media 2016

 

 

YOUTH PLAGUE  detail - FRONT 13” x 22” x 8” Mixed Media 2016

 


YOUTH PLAGUE  detail - BACK 13” x 22” x 8” Mixed Media 2016

 

PAINFUL EXPOSURE 6.5” x 8.5” x 1.5” Mixed Media 2016




"I am the cockroach foraging through the garbage you so willingly released.
I am the encrusted vomit you found inside of your nostrils after a night of partying.
I am the end note to a key speech where the politician got shot.
I am the sweat hidden under a latex gimp mask.
I am everything trying to become the Nothing.

I am the masturbator.
I am the masturbator in the park at dawn.
I am the masturbator in the car yelling at you.
I am the masturbator pretending its all ok. 

I am the savior, the resurrected relic of late nineteen teen's Dadaism.
I am the dirty rig your best friend OD'd on.
I am the proletariate shitting on the bourgeoisie.
I am the Belial of Houston St., 1991.
I am the brittle paint cracking,
enticing the release of a William Blake quote.

I am the white male.
I am the white male you were warned about.

I am your worst fucking nightmare."

– James Concannon

 

 

Shop artwork from James Concannon HERE

 

All Artwork ©2016 James Concannon / Courtesy of the Artist
Photo of James Concannon @GLORY HOLE by Jacqueline Verdugo / Courtesy of BFA