scene BY JEREMY GOMEZ
30 YEARS OF ART
WITH JAMES FOOT
G
rowing up sometimes comes from realising that there are two sides to yourself, just as there are two sides to a single coin, and that these two sides make one unique person. It is the reconciling of these, at times, opposing sides that makes us who we are. The Cornwall-born artist James Foot, who has spent the last 30 years deepening his roots in Gibraltar, is that type of person; one who appreciates the paradoxical elements that have made him who he is. In the 1980s, he was protesting in anti-war, anti-nuclear weapons marches but has also dined with the higher-ups of the armed forces; a son of a farmer who rarely, if ever, left Cornwall and yet has spent his life travelling the world; a political progressive, that paints what he describes as ‘conservative paintings’. James will be returning to Gibraltar and will be staging an art exhibition from March 24thApril 3rd comprised of sketches 46
and paintings that had been stored away in his former house in London, including works from
The exhibition will express a life lived in and around Gibraltar around the time of his first arrival to Gibraltar. The collection depicts paintings made in Tangiers and Tarifa. His time in Tarifa in the summer of 1990 is what led him to first visit Gibraltar, a place that he admits he had no intention of coming to as it was a British naval base and yet, it was through the invitation of some English naval officers that invited him to Gibraltar, a place he would come to adore. The year after his first visit, James was invited to exhibit in the John
Mackintosh Hall after the then director Manolo Galliano had seen his exhibition in Tangiers, where James was living at the time. His watercolour paintings had been collected by many in the forces and many affluent families in Gibraltar since then. Interesting clientele for someone who describes himself as usually being on the “outside of things”. However, it was with these clients that James starting laying his foundations in Gibraltar. It was with the help of the Incumbent Admiral Jeremy Sanders and his wife, who he describes as having ‘adopted’ him, that he painted alongside and organised workshops in their residence at the Mount, before it became open to public use. From then onwards, James had been living intermittently in Gibraltar whilst also exhibiting around the world and, later, finding his own artwork in homes as far as New York and Australia. In 1997, he was even commissioned to paint the GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE MARCH 2020
