JAMES’ ART

James Ferrari prides himself on being multidisciplinary in his artistic practice. WORKS BELOW INCLUDE PAINTINGS, INSTALLATIONS, POETRY AND ACTING.

My work is inspired by a passion for exploring the beauty of nature, both in the physical world and in the abstract sense. Through my abstract layered acrylic paintings, I aim to capture a moment in time or a memory, creating a window for the viewer to enter my world. I am drawn to the harmony and juxtaposition between organic elements, geometric forms, and always including the human figure in various forms, resulting in a sense of balance between them. Influenced by painters such as Picasso and Basquiat as well as taking influence from traditional African art and fashion, I strive to create visually arresting compositions that evoke a sense of mystery and nostalgia. My work gives viewers a unique opportunity to view my world through a kaleidoscope of my own making.

PAINTING

A selection of James’ contemporary art works.

DOCTORS Vs. LAWYERS (2023)

In June 2023, James performed as an actor in Thirdwing’s Doctors vs. Lawyers with the very gifted Cameron Bossert and an equally talented team of actors who helped bring his play to life. The reading was a thrilling jumping off point for further evolutions of the project, expected soon on stage and screen.

From Thirdwing: 

“Doctors vs. Lawyers tells the story of a malpractice firm in over its head and a pair of physicians who may be in over theirs. Conflicts of interest and strategy mount in this comedy of dueling professions.”

LOVE ALL aLICES (2022)

In 2022, James had the privilege to perform in Love All Alices, which tells the story of legendary New York City acting teacher Alice Spivak, who taught for more than 60 years and died in 2020 at the age of 85. She was a born storyteller. Herbert Bergof said of her, “Alice goes to the bathroom and comes back with a story.” With a native New Yorker’s frankness, and a lifelong performer’s ear for the dramatic, she would regale anyone in her presence with wild tales from her life. While her contributions were made mainly behind the scenes, Spivak’s stories, theories, and radical imagination offer a new way to look at craft and performance. Director Lavinia Jones Wright interviewed Alice Spivak over the course of three years, and wrote Love All Alices entirely from her words. The play premiered in a staged reading event this summer at the Connelly Theater, beginning on what would have been Alice’s 87th birthday: August 11th, 2022, by 40 actors who knew her.

THE ANCHOR (2023)

A feature film in development which centers around a television anchor from a third tier station who gets released from captivity from a militant branch of Radical Islamic Fundamentalists while on assignment in the Middle East. The anchor hijacks the airwaves to espouse the Arab world's view on US foreign policy and how it is shaping popular opinion abroad and the epiphany of “eminent domain and the greater good” times well with a new sense of purpose in his life.

CHEKHOV: A TRIBUTE (2018)

In his stage debut, James had the honor take part in from OnTheRoad Repertory Company ‘s A Night of Chekhov. Attached are a few of the scenes I had the honor to take part in from OnTheRoad Repertory Company presents A Night of Chekhov -- A Tribute. Directed by the legendary Alice Spivak, music coordinator Eric Rausch (featuring the Firebird by Igor Stravinsky), January 29th at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. I felt very privileged to work with Alice Spivak and OnTheRoad Rep, as well as on my scenes from the Bear and the Cherry Orchard with the terrific Nicole Kafka. Great audience for a sold out show as well. Truly a delight.

POETRY WITH MOM

Mary Ferrari reads her poetry.

harry belafonte: THE DREAM REVISITED (2022)

An excerpt from Harry Belafonte: The Dream Revisited, where Harry talks about the last thing Martin Luther King said to him before his passing. This film is ...An upcoming documentary that explores Harry Belafonte’s commitment to Civil Rights, Political Activism, and Democracy throughout his lifetime, where he has always been in the rhythm of current the happenings.

SAMUEL BECKETT 100TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AND PATRICK MCMULLEN’S KISS KISS LAUNCH PARTY

Samuel Beckett 100th Anniversary Celebration. We held a gala on my terrace located at 21 Chelsea in New York, NY. We celebrated Samuel Beckett's 100th Anniversary with a reading from Patrick McMullan's "Kiss Kiss" book launch party.

“LoveLite”

Large-scale art installation created by Ferrari and celebrated abstract painter Richmond Burton, fusing geometrical patterns and grid with a map of the world, all laid out in bands of light. The project was a temporary installment in Bellport Long Island.

The inaugural collaboration for Tribal Truth, LoveLite is a controlled lighting installation on an open field that features a 60’ steel tower (pictured below without the top attached) and celebrates the spirit of a global village. The work evolved from Richmond Burton’s and James Ferrari’s ideas about utilizing an overgrown and partially destroyed steel tower located on Ferrari’s property in Bellport, New York. The tower had been previously constructed in a grid form, and Burton’s primary compositional tool is often a grid.

In LoveLite, the artists expanded the grid element into the notion of meridian lines on a map, and suddenly the meridian lines extend off the tower and into the 130 by 70 foot field at the tower’s base. The artists used colored rope lights and controlled theatrical lighting to realize vibrant intersecting lines that surround and consume the artists and viewer. The Tower, 10’ x 10’ square at its base, seems to sprout from the world grid as its diagonal steel beams converge at a mirrored orb, a luminous geosphere, which reflects the light and energy of the field, channeling and distributing from its apex the spirit of a world working together.

From close-up, the viewer is interactively involved with the movement of the majestic light-layered grid. From a further perspective, the individual is invited to assume a macrocosmic perspective as they can view the component parts working together in a delicate, interrelated balance between the planet and our influence over it, as portrayed by ever-moving lines of colored lights. The work can be installed in large outdoor areas, or it has been documented for gallery exhibition in a video triptych.

Original recordings of Ugandan chanting obtained by Ferrari while working in the rainforest there were also played at the exhibition.A documentary of the installation and exhibition is in post-production and planned to be release in 2021.

PETER BEARD

James and Peter met in 2004 in the NYC social scene. Having many areas of interest in common between Sub-Saharan Africa, nature, art, politics, and fashion, Peter and James ended up becoming good friends and collaborators, spending many evenings painting into the night where Peter would crash on James’ couch.

Peter Beard was a muse of the painter Francis Bacon, whom he did a couple portraits of as well.

James is currently in production on a documentary of Peter with original collected footage from their friendship over the years. The footage also includes Malcolm Morley, the celebrated British-American painter who also passed recently and whom the two were friends with as well.

AFTER THE FALL (2023)

“After the Fall” (Working title) is a documentary currently focused largely on the trauma associated within and around COVID-19 and 9/11. While not inherently related, these two events have inextricably altered human discourse forever. James Ferrari and Citizen 007 Media have found the dialogue between these two places in history to be to be incredibly insightful and wish to bring this relationship to a broader audience. 

The project is a summation of both actively gathered and archival footage. In October of 2001, crew members gathered first hand testimony of trauma affecting various individuals in and around downtown Manhattan. Ferrari is bringing renewed interest to this archival footage, wishing to contemporize these valuable accounts with a new set of insights from the participants, a full 19 years later. The intersection between COVID-19 and 9/11 is a deep well of potential insight into not only individual trauma, but a whole nation of individuals under emotional siege.

FOR FREEDOMS CONGRESS

“Hosted in LA in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Japanese American National Museum, Hammer Museum, Crenshaw Dairy Mart, Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, and other arts institutions around the city, FFCon delivered an engaging series of artist-led programs and workshops that built upon Los Angeles' historic role as the birthplace and driver of important artistic-led cultural movements over the decades. Along with closed-door sessions with For Freedoms partners, the Congress included four public Town Hall programs curated and co-hosted by Sankofa.org and a public day of programming on March 1 at the Hammer Museum. Artists led For Freedoms’ “delegates” from all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico in building a collective artists’ platform for public action to supercharge civic engagement in their communities leading up to the 2020 Presidential Election. Delegates were made up of our artistic collaborators, institutional and organizational partners, and funders. Together we strengthened connections within our network, and collectively developed the Creative Plan of Action.” https://forfreedoms.org/ffcon/

BWINDI ORPHAN’S GROUP (2005)

A documentary short featuring a group of AIDS related orphans performing in the Congo Mountains amidst silverback gorillas