Artists of change: James Thurgood

To celebrate our recent 20-year anniversary, Infinite Global’s creative team curated an art exhibition which explored the theme of changing perceptions. ‘Artists of Change’ builds upon this train of thought – and we thought it appropriate to feature his work as our final post of the series.

The ‘Beautiful Image’ series by James Thurgood was prominent in the exhibition. Have a watch of the short film above – produced by our very own creative team – featuring James and his work.

James explains as follows:

This series of work consists of photographs that have been covered – excluding a thin margin – with gold leaf. The selected base photographs have already been described as ‘beautiful’ by a viewer.

This work attempts to tackle the subjective nature of beauty; the adoption of gold leaf – a material that is universally and historically appreciated for its glorious and majestic qualities – aims to nullify this subjective judgement and render the image beautiful to all.

However, by adding the leaf, obvious and frustrating polarities come into play, as this act of covering the image both beautifies it and destroys it. The final image is disabling in that it prevents you viewing the image in the way it was originally intended.

Aside from their gorgeous appearance, we love the way that the works conjure up ideas about the nature of beauty, good taste and value.

They also invite the thought that if you want to create something beautiful, embellishing it richly with gold is not always the answer. The same is often true of reputations and brands.