James Aldridge

Born 1979, UK


Aldridge’s work is informed by his immediate environment, the forests of Småland in Southern Sweden. Much of the music he listens to is also Scandinavian, which contains traces of a Nordic melancholy tapped from the same source as Ibsen, Munch, Strindberg.


Aldridge finds parallels between the paintings he makes and the music he listens to. They are not illustrations of the music, rather they inhabit the same world as the music. The genres of music he listens to - Black Metal, Doom, True Doom, Death Doom, Funeral Doom, Black Doom, Thrash, Sludge, Drone, Noise, Folk Metal, etc. embrace imagery that deals with good and evil, elemental forces, folklore and the beauty and strength of nature (it is revered) and couple it with the physical force of the music as an entity to create powerful atmosphere.



James Aldrigide, Black Pines, papercut, 160 x 120 cm, 2009.