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James Briggs

Leeds
Briggs’ practice explores the emotional and material imprints of place, using abstraction and reconfiguration to foreground absence, memory, and the passage of time.

Briggs’ sculptural practice is rooted in site-specificity, with a focus on transforming and reinterpreting physical spaces to invite new ways of seeing and engaging with the environment. Central to his work is the process of deconstructing and reconstructing spatial elements—reworking what already exists to create installations that slow down perception and draw attention to the unseen. His practice encourages a reflective engagement with the built world, prompting a reconsideration of how space is experienced both individually and collectively.

Architecture plays a recurring role in Briggs’ visual language. He is drawn to structural forms that shape the way we navigate the everyday—columns, beams, angles, and shadows—architectural motifs that subtly guide our movement and awareness. By abstracting and recontextualizing these familiar forms, Briggs evokes a sense of memory, place, and temporality. His work does not aim to replicate architecture but rather to reimagine it, using form, material, and negative space to suggest what once existed, what remains, and what might return.

Ultimately, Briggs’ practice holds space for contemplation—on environments, histories, and the fleeting nature of human presence within a much longer temporal continuum. There is a quiet sense of world-building that threads through his installations: imagined fragments that speak to both the remnants of the past and speculative futures. Each piece serves as an invitation to pause, to notice, and to engage with the emotional and material imprints left in the spaces we inhabit.

 

Form 3

Between Systems

Impartial Memory

Duct

Fold

Press

Form 2

Form 2

Untitled

Passages

Drape

Form 1

Featured in

Curated

Highlights: 11 - 17 August, 2025

By Axis

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