Artist Profile James Farrar

James Farrar, Ethereal Echoes (detail from Ethereal Echoes 1), 2023, Layered lino print on chiffon and satin silk,
bamboo pole, Three components each 55.1″” x 39.4″ (1400 mm x 1000 mm), installation dimensions variable.

Artist Statement

Ethereal Echoes is a series of 3 lino prints on layered silk, suspended from bamboo poles. These works reflect upon and illuminate aspects of my identity struggles as an adopted Korean person living in Australia. The work addresses an imagined haunting that is experienced by the ghost of my Korean identity. While tangible, it is also at once completely alien. The ghost represents the dichotomies of an identity as a person of colour growing up in a Western country. The ghost is depicted through the layering of chiffon silk on a layer of heavy satin silk.

The function of memory and lived experience provides context to understand the ghost that diasporic people live with, hoping to make ideas and concepts clear to those who may not have endured such events .

Inspired by works such as Inferno, by Dante Alighieri, Ethereal Echoes depicts an episodic narrative to elucidate my experience of the ghost that haunts me. Imagery of historical significance, folklore, mythology and religious works, function as a nexus to understand the crises underpinning modern diasporic identity. This imagery is further drawn from the duality of my identity, where there is an inherent contradiction, such as the use of both traditional Korean imagery and traditional Western imagery.

Movement, conflict and war are integral to my work. The Korean War of 1950-1953 eventuated in the split of the culturally homogenous Korean people into two separate nations, North and South Korea. This split allegorically mirrors the divergence of my own identity, fractured into two disparate beings. These diverging identity-based pathways are further examined through concepts of escapism, heroes, Korean culture, religion, memories, music and dance. These concepts form the ghost of my Korean self, metaphorically killed and left in a forgotten state of purgatory, replaced by white identity.

Fundamentally, this work is about understanding and repairing the fragmented connection of identity, seeking a form of self-healing. This work is an investigation surrounding hauntological ramifications of multiracial diasporic people in a substantially Western landscape.

Artist Biography

My works are a product of my personal journey as an adopted Korean male living in Australia. I aim to depict the emotional turmoil that results from a search for an Australian – Korean identity. Primarily working with large scale linocut prints, my works are allegorical and adapt mythology and folklore to my contemporary context. I combine imagery of dance, movement, music and war to convey the constant noise of my thoughts which unsettle and plague me. This idea of inner conflict is furthered through the medium of printmaking, where the gestural line work embodies this chaotic tension.