Texts
James John Midwinter on Working with Imperfections
Sirocco Journal Nº3
2025
James John Midwinter is a multi disciplinary artist living and working in Newquay, Cornwall. His practice is both an exploration and a representation of his mind-state, driven by personal discoveries and lessons from therapy.
Unpredictability has become something central to my work because it has been such a challenge to embrace. I struggle with perfectionism, so the unpredictable and uncontrollable ‘happy accidents’ are themselves an expression and embrace of that discomfort with imperfection, within myself as much as the work. I actually have to try my best not to manage the unpredictability itself, but rather to manage how I feel about it, and to be compassionate to myself rather than judgemental.
If anything, I am now more fond of ways to push my prints even further from a ‘perfect’ finish. I like to print my photographs on delicate washi paper that I’ve hand coated in silver gelatin or cyanotype chemicals, as a way to bring beautiful imperfection into the prints themselves, with brushstrokes and texture you wouldn’t get in a factory coated piece of darkroom paper. There are ways of getting a more ‘perfect’ linear result with even these hand coated mediums, coating with a glass rod for instance, but that doesn’t interest me. Earlier this year I completed work on a collection of images for a zine with a Tokyo based publisher, where I’ve deliberately used a very coarse brush to apply the emulsion, in order to bring out the imperfections in the prints even further.
In the making of my last book, I used a risograph machine, and fell in love with the subtle variations in each print, and the way the soft black of the soy ink bleeds and smudges in places. The way the ink is pushed through the screen gives a really unique grain texture to the images, which feels so much more satisfying than a digital print. These ‘mistakes’, the imperfection of the materials and process, are what make it feel relatable and magic. Obviously there is a balance to be had. I don’t want the integrity of the image to be overpowered by the imperfections and accidents so that it is lost, but I also don’t want to try to control things too much either.
As an example of this search for balance, for a recent collection of prints I used very fine washi paper pasted onto plywood boards. In some areas the gelatin had worn away on the surface of the prints from the process of smoothing the paper on. This left marks which were subtle and interesting, adding to the patina of the print; they were a testament to the effort and hand made nature of the work. However, there were some less subtle marks which just didn’t sit right with me. They drew attention away from other areas of the print, distracting from the image rather than enhancing it.
In the past I would have found this extremely frustrating as it would have thrown up a lot of self-insecurity: was I just being too perfectionist? Were they in fact not that big a deal? Not even noticeable? Or did they look really terrible, worse than I thought! Perfectionism can often distort your discernment, and make you feel unsure of yourself, and in the worst cases, ‘reality’.
Thankfully these days I can summon up compassion, and give myself permission to either leave them, or deal with them, for better or worse, in a way that I’ll enjoy, and that would add something to the print. I got out a pencil, and gently drew some texture onto those missing patches of emulsion; something I hadn’t done before. It was a really enjoyable process… something subtle, new and spontaneous had been added to the print, rather than something imperfect to be removed.
All Rights Reserved – Text © James John Midwinter
Images © James John Midwinter
Images © James John Midwinter