Oreka James (b. Toronto, Ontario) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work makes references to excavated and recovered articles from our collective history through world-building, and the transmutation of repurposed objects and materials. Their work explores the beauty and mystery of oralities, traditions, practices, mythologies, the mundane, and the fantastical, both cross-culturally and specifically within the Black Diaspora. James engages in continued study into animism and its belief that objects and places are soul, spirit, and sentient. James received their BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design University and has completed a group residency at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto) and, Bowling Green State University (Ohio). They have exhibited their work at Pangée (Montréal), Efrain Lopez Project Space (Chicago), Cooper Cole (Toronto), Patel Brown Gallery (Toronto), MOCA (Toronto), Mercer Union(Toronto), and Gallery 44 (Toronto), among others.
For GTA24, James has been commissioned to create a kinetic sculpture made of metal and cow horns that will be presented alongside a number of new paintings. Imbued with lessons from cosmic architecture, archeology, and Eastern philosophies, the works embody James’ deep embrace of the unknown and ephemeral.
