PRINTING FROM HERE

Figure 39: Cliff 1, 2019, oil, ink and pencil on stone paper, 40” x 28”

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Figure 40: Bloom, 2019, mixed media and collage on stone paper, 40” x 28”

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Figure 41: Pink Shackles, 2019, oil and ink on stone paper, 29” x 20”

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Figure 42: Field Study 58, 2001, mixed media on vellum, 16" x 12"

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Figure 43: Field Study 475, 2008, mixed media on vellum, 20”x 16”

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Figure 44: Field Study 749, 2020, mixed media on vellum, 20" x 16"

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Figure 45: Field Study 474, 2008, mixed media on vellum, 16" x 12"

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Figure 46: Family 3, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 4.5” x 2.5” x 2.5”

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Figure 50: Family 5, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 6” x 5” x 5” Figure 49: Family 1, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 8.5” x 3.5” x 4”

Figure 47: Family 10, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 7.5” x 4” x 4” Figure 48: Family 7, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 5” x 3” x 5”

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Figure 51: Family (Pair), 1996, cast bronze with patina

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Figure 52: Family (Group), 1996, cast bronze with patina

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Figure 53: Studio Window, Summer 1, 2009, oil on linen, 12” x 24”

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AFTERWORD can imbue common tropes with qualities that are not just unfamiliar,
PAINTING FROM HERE but transformative. Such works don’t always follow conventions of
composition or subject, but push beyond what pictures might ever
Through nature I find my nature before have depicted. Intervening in our formulation of reality, the
landscape artist re-roots awareness in its original object, our world.
Terrell James to Ted Pillsbury, 2004
A life of rooted inhabitance is often referred to as “dwelling,” to
Art about landscape promises insight and new visions of the world suggest ideals of stability and duration. It feels like a good word to
around us. There’s a chance, we feel, that through its experience the suggest enduring, intensive settlement, and is often used inter-
world might become better rooted and more authentic. And it pro- changeably with “house” and “home.” With a history reaching for-
poses a mirror to reflect nature’s mysterious role in everything we ward from Old English, Anglo Saxon, Old Norse, High German, and
know and can think of. At its very best, as with Turner, Corot, Ryder old Danish, it suggests a kind of abiding, but deeper – and commu-
or Cozens, it can bring our outer sphere – the realm of fields, moun- nal; philosophers have tied it to notions of personal and social au-
tains and the sky – into clearer focus, not just in its representation, thenticity. Martin Heidegger held that “man is, insofar as he dwells,”
but by expanding our experience and understanding. We rely on art- by which he meant “to cherish and protect, to preserve and care
ists to cut through or push aside the projections that becloud our for.”3 Whether or not literally invoking the term, in opening deeper
minds and belittle the Earth. Indeed, they’re our ally in finding the encounters with nature, landscape art directly addresses the practices
clarity needed to truly see what lies around us. When successful, of dwelling. Its every proposition and corresponding critique marks
they can launch experience us far beyond the immediate scale of a a turn in the contest between who we are (and have been) and who
picture set in a frame, hung on a wall. Their work may inspire a we might become, and potentially a new calibration of our rooted-
sense of sharpening light, straightened perspectives, or a sense of al- ness. With the legacy of her family’s long residence in Texas, and
tered time, expanding or contracting. From mere suggestions – such still living in the city of her childhood, Terrell James seems well
as from a painter’s brush or a photographer’s lens – landscape art

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qualified for such a discourse. Since revolutionary Texas, her rela- Dwelian was “to err;” Dvol in Old Norse meant “to delay;” and
tions have been closely involved with the state and its history. Twellen in Old High German meant “to hinder.” The original Dan-
They’ve ranched, soldiered, constructed buildings large and small, ish Dvale signified “a stupor.”4 From the 10th through the 19th cen-
and established various businesses. Over the years, James herself turies, these related words referred to disconnection from place, not
has been closely involved in supporting local art spaces, young art- connection: “bad dwelling.” Thus the real-life eclipse of the stability
ists and galleries, and in 2016 was named “Texas Artist of the and care described by Heidegger might simply have been an un-
Year.” masking of deeper truths – about society, or perhaps about our time.

However, James’ path has been marked by instability. By late child- Rather than grasping more firmly to convention or its symbols,
hood, she had already witnessed Houston’s wild economic gyrations against this backdrop James looked outward. Her parents’ literary
and the dissolution of her parents’ marriage. The upheavals of the interests had inspired a focus on words, but with the artist’s earliest
1960’s were matched by misfortunes in the family business. Strong steps through her grandfather’s printing company – and command of
family relations offered little insulation against the rapid changes its equipment – visual art became her focus. She vividly recalls the
and social tumults of the period. The contrast between expectations
of stability and the realities of 1970s Texas was sharpened by her fa- sense of power she experienced upon drawing her first lines. Early
ther’s early death. This disorder was bewildering – and nothing like
Heidegger’s idea of dwelling. Indeed, the failed promise of stability schooling with an accomplished relative followed by tuition at Hou-
seemed to repudiate possibilities of a sturdy, protected existence; ston’s Museum of Fine Arts led to a college career marked by bur-
“dwelling” was a myth. In this context it’s useful to consider an-
other, less positive side to “dwelling,” for the word dwell has a sec- geoning talent and new mentors. Resuming work in Houston, she
ond family. As reported in numerous etymologies, Dwellen in Old
English could mean “to mislead or deceive;” in Anglo Saxon, turned to the study of terrains both urban and rural, seeking answers
to the “what” and “why” of her terrain. Growing interest in aligning
her subjects’ notional pictorial scale with their true magnitude – for
instance, tying the experience of her Sotol View to that of “Sotol
View” the desert lookout – inspired wide research and travel, from

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Texas’ vast Big Bend, to Montauk in New York, coastal North Car- possible meanings. In nature, species similarly proliferate beyond
olina, Beijing and Berlin. This involvement with nature was not a their presumed niches, in effect increasing the candidates available
categorical investigation, but part of a wide-ranging search for para- for natural selection. James’ practice models this process even at
digms of how the damaged world might be re-scaled, re-visioned, the most basic level, as in her mixing of pigments. For instance, her
and repaired. James came to see natural evolution as an archetype of experimental, trial-and-error approach to creating novel hues echoes
such renewal, motivated equally by inner drives and remote influ- the trials by which the varieties of avian camouflage evolved. In na-
ences, and constantly nurtured through communal networks of or- ture, the outcome of such resolute openness is “selection” and, even-
ganic connections. The confluence of her artmaking with this grow- tually, the perfect fit of creature and ecological function; James’
ing awareness answered the chaos of 1970s America with harbingers analogous process yields unique aesthetic sensations that are insepa-
of another kind of place: here was dwelling, after all. rable from their realization in her works.

Varying brushwork, the sharp gougings of intaglio, and her draw- James’ principle of openness and her principle of dwelling are the
ings’ wayward lines palpably embody James’ close attention to ma- same. Just as her gestures inspire the viewer continually to re-en-
terials and facture. Navigating her visions, artist and viewer collabo- gage and reinterpret her works, so too do these encounters deepen
rate in unhinging these traces from notions of narrative or precon- and reconstruct their meanings. This reiterative process elevates
ceived form. The re-engagement with James’ artwork required to memory’s interplay with perception into an apparatus for the “cher-
heal this derangement involves the viewer in even closer encounters ishing, protecting, preserving and caring-for”1 that technically define
with it. Churning up volumes of suggestions and meanings, the dwelling. Meanwhile, her focus on landscape’s emergent qualities
winding turns of this engagement can suggest a form of cultivation, has revealed the ephemeral, dwelling-free miasma of Houston as an
or the processes of evolutionary selection. Figuratively performing a ideal “ground zero” for modeling this interplay. Echoing nature’s or-
hypothetical tilling and re-tilling of un-harvested and still-fruited der-in-disorder, James’ cyclical questioning brushes aside insular
fields, these encounters suggest a limitless crop of relationships and conventions in favor of the perpetual contest between landscape’s

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new and old realities. As if polishing dull metal into a bright mirror,
these interrogations produce ever sharper reflections, and liberate vi-
sion from unexamined preconceptions. As with the plein air investi-
gations of Claude and Corot, they re-root the experience of land-
scape in its original object – the place itself. Ask where her works
begin and end, and the answer is: here. Terrell James is painting
from here.

1 Buhmann, Stephanie, Place and Transition in the Work of Terrell James,
accompanied the Art League Houston exhibition, Hover, 2016.

2 Roethlisberger, Marcel. Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, Yale University
Press, New Haven and London, 1961, vol.1: 47-50.

3 Heidegger, M. 1971. Building dwelling thinking. In Poetry, language,
thought, ed. Heidegger, M, 145–161. (Translation and introduction: Al-
bert Hofstadter). New York: Harper & Row.

4 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, T. F. HOAD:
Dwell †lead astray OE.; †tarry, delay; continue in a place or state XII;
have one's abode XIII; spend time on XVI. OE. dwellan, pt. wealde lead
astray, corr. to OS. bidwellian hinder, MDu. dwellen stun, perplex, OHG.
twellen delay, harass, ON. dvelja trans. delay, intr. and refl. tarry, stay; f.
Gmc. *dwel- *dwal- *dwul-. The sense ‘abide, stay’ was adopted from
ON.thought, ed. Heidegger, M, 145–161. (Translation and introduction:
Albert Hofstadter). New York: Harper & Row.

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FIGURES Figure 35: Liquid Alignment, 2019, oil on linen, 48” x 120” ............................................. 40
Figure 36: Saboteur, 2018, oil on aluminum, 12” x 12” ..................................................... 41
Figure 1: Sotol View (detail), 2007, oil and acrylic on canvas, 84" x 252" .......................... 6 Figure 37: Misfits, 2017, oil on canvas, 44” x 38” ............................................................. 41
Figure 2: Tidal Threshold (detail), 2010, oil and acrylic on canvas, 63.5" x 213" ................ 7 Figure 38: Drawn from Family, 2019, oil and graphite on stone paper, 28” x 20” ............. 42
Figure 3: Tidal Threshold, 2010, oil and acrylic on canvas, 63.5" x 213" ............................ 9 Figure 39: Cliff 1, 2019, oil, ink and pencil on stone paper, 40” x 28”............................... 43
Figure 4: Sotol View, 2007, oil and acrylic on canvas, 84" x 252"..................................... 10 Figure 40: Bloom, 2019, mixed media and collage on stone paper, 40” x 28” ................... 44
Figure 5: Mountain (progress 1), 2017, oil on canvas......................................................... 11 Figure 41: Pink Shackles, 2019, oil and ink on stone paper, 29” x 20” .............................. 45
Figure 6: Mountain (progress 2), 2017, oil on canvas......................................................... 11 Figure 42: Field Study 58, 2001, mixed media on vellum, 16" x 12" ................................. 46
Figure 7: Mountain, 2017, oil on canvas, 66" x 66"............................................................ 12 Figure 43: Field Study 475, 2008, mixed media on vellum, 20”x 16” ................................ 47
Figure 8: Between Twins, 2018, oil on canvas, 42" x 42" .................................................. 13 Figure 44: Field Study 749, 2020, mixed media on vellum, 20" x 16" ............................... 48
Figure 9: Displacements, 2019, mixed media on stone paper, 28" x 40" ............................ 14 Figure 45: Field Study 474, 2008, mixed media on vellum, 16" x 12" ............................... 49
Figure 10: Threads 5, 2019, mixed media on stone paper, 28" x 20".................................. 16 Figure 46: Family 3, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 4.5” x 2.5” x 2.5” .............................. 50
Figure 11: Retinue, 2017, oil on canvas, 78" x 105"........................................................... 17 Figure 47: Family 1, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 8.5” x 3.5” x 4” ................................. 51
Figure 12:Merwin’s Thoroughfare, 2019, paint and ink on stone paper, 29” x 20”............ 19 Figure 48: Family 5, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 6” x 5” x 5” ....................................... 51
Figure 13: Thunder, 2019, paint and ink on stone paper, 29” x 20” ................................... 19 Figure 49: Family 10, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 7.5” x 4” x 4” .................................. 51
Figure 14: Field Study 3, 1997, mixed media on vellum, 16" x 12" ................................... 23 Figure 50: Family 7, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 5” x 3” x 5” ....................................... 51
Figure 15: Field Study 3, 1997, mixed media on vellum, 16" x 12" ................................... 23 Figure 51: Family (Pair), 1996, cast bronze with patina ..................................................... 52
Figure 16: Field Study 15, 1998, mixed media on vellum, 16" x 12" ................................. 24 Figure 52: Family (Group), 1996, cast bronze with patina ................................................. 53
Figure 17: Field Study 19, 1998, mixed media on vellum, 16" x 12" ................................. 25 Figure 53: Studio Window, Summer 1, 2009, oil on linen, 12” x 24” ................................ 54
Figure 18: Field Study 35, 2003, mixed media on vellum, 16” x 12”................................. 25
Figure 19: Field Study 120, 2003, mixed media on vellum, 16” x 12”............................... 26 PHOTOGRAPHY
Figure 20: Field Study 37, 2000, mixed media on vellum, 16” x 12” ................................. 26
Figure 21: Field Study 130, 2003, mixed media on vellum, 16” x12” ................................ 27 Tom DuBrock
Figure 22: Field Study 751, 2020, mixed media on vellum, 16” x 12” ............................... 29 Pages: 6-7, 9,-10, 12-14, 16-17, 19, 29, 36-45, 48
Figure 23: Field Study 725, 2018, mixed media on vellum, 20” x 16” ............................... 29
Figure 24: Family 2, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 5” x 2” x 3” ...................................... 30 Wolf MacLean
Figure 25: Family 2, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 5” x 2” x 3” ....................................... 32 Pages: Preface, 30, 32-33, 46-47
Figure 26: Family 5, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 6” x 5” x 5” ....................................... 33
Figure 27: Family 1 and 9, 1996, cast bronze with patina, 8.5” x 3.5” x 4”........................ 33 Author
Figure 28: Untitled (Rope Piece), Eva Hesse, 1970, mixed media, Estate of Eva Hesse, Pages: 2, 7 (right), 8, 53
Hauser & Wirth, Zurich and London .................................................................................. 34
Figure 29: Automatic Drawing, Andre Masson, 1924, MoMA .......................................... 34 Cover: Sotol View, 2007, oil and acrylic on canvas, 84" x 252"
Figure 30: Rouffignac 5, 2002, acrylic and oil on birch, 23” x 25” .................................... 36
Figure 31: Rouffignac 10, 2002, acrylic and oil on birch, 23” x 25” .................................. 37
Figure 32: Rouffignac 7, 2002, acrylic and oil on birch, 23” x 25” .................................... 37
Figure 33: Shells on the Moon, 2008, oil on canvas, 66” x 66”.......................................... 38
Figure 34: Signal, 2019, oil on linen, 29” x 63” ................................................................. 39

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ABOUT

Surpik Zarikian Angelini Cameron M Armstrong

Surpik Angelini is a Houston based artist, curator, author, Cameron Armstrong is a Houston based author and architect,
and the founding Director of the Transart Foundation for Art known for collaborations with sitework artists, a wide range
& Anthropology. The Transart Foundation is a private, non- of publications, and his design firm's explorations of new
profit organization established by artists and scholars in building materials and typologies. After a childhood spent in
Houston in 1996 for the purpose of supporting individual art- Canada and Great Britain, he earned degrees from Yale Uni-
ists, scholars, curators, filmmakers, and directors whose versity and Oberlin College before relocating to Texas in
work incorporates contemporary social research and cultural 1983. He lives in the West End area of Houston with the sub-
critique. ject of this publication, and a young Blackmouth Cur.

Ms. Angelini was trained in art at Mills College and Cornell
University (1966-68) and in architecture and urban planning
at the Universidad Central de Venezuela (1971-76); she ob-
tained her BArch from the University of Houston (1979).

She has collaborated widely, including with John Cage, Gor-
don Matta-Clark and Abdel Hernandez. Her work with
Thomas McEvilley at Rice University in 1990-94 led to the
University’s co-sponsorship (with Transart) of Artists in
Trance: New Methodologies in the Work with the Other, an
intensive program of lectures, films and exhibitions of an-
thropologically-based art.

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