Dates: 17th July - 5th September 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday 16th July, 6-8pm
James Lomax’s forthcoming exhibition presents fourteen windows cast in dark, unpigmented concrete. The number of works echo the fourteen 'Black Paintings' by Francisco Goya. Painted directly onto the walls of Goya’s country villa on the outskirts of Madrid between 1819 and 1823, the 'Black Paintings' are murals that mark the artist's turn toward psychological intensity and darkness. Their imagery reflects the disillusionment Goya felt toward the end of his life. Drawing from such melancholic historical reference, Lomax's works become self-reflective meditations on cognizance and uncertainty.
Each cast window offers only a sliver of the outside world, the rest of the pane is obscured. What lies beyond the frame is uncertain. While the frames are domestic and recognisable, the landscapes beyond remain unclear, prompting the viewer to question what lies beyond.
Windows traditionally orient us: they tell us the time of day, the weather, the conditions beyond ourselves. Here, however, those certainties are suspended. Through repetition and the use of concrete, Lomax transforms the window into both a barrier and a monument, capturing the unsettling stillness between protection and entrapment. Positioning us firmly inside looking, the viewer experiences an uneasy tension; the windows hold us in place rather than inviting us outward.
Lomax’s reference knowingly nods to the Overton Window (also known as the window of discourse), which is the range of policies and ideas politically acceptable to the mainstream public at any given time. Coined by American policy analyst Joseph Overton, it describes what politicians can safely propose without being viewed as too radical or out of touch.
The domestic associations of a window usually imply shelter, but the solidity of concrete complicates that comfort. By using concrete, a material associated with permanence and weight, Lomax ensures each frame becomes fixed in time - immobilised and fossilised.