Figuratively Speaking

James Mason sculpts with a sense of humor

By: Leonard B. Jaffe

Most widely known for the Columbus Deaf School Park’s topiary A Sunday Afternoon on the Ile de la Grande Jatte, a three-dimensional interpretation of the classic Georges Seurat painting by the same name, Columbus native James Mason is pragmatic about the art of topiary.

“If you trim a hedge – that’s topiary. If you shape a plant – that’s topiary,” he says. “Topiary just means ‘to sculpt plant material.’”

However, underneath this humility lies a sculptor who has a deep appreciation for crafting living sculpture and a deep understanding of three-dimensional form.

“The bronze figures underneath the plants, the armatures, those are sculptures themselves. Then, the plants grow on top of them and become part of the piece.”

Mason’s work can be seen in both private and public collections in Columbus, New York, Los Angeles and many other cities, spanning a number of different mediums. In addition to his notable work in topiary, he also casts sculpture in bronze and carves wood, when he’s not painting.

“When I get tired of one (medium), I just move on to another,” he says. His willingness to trade one medium for another is one way that he keeps his creativity fresh, he explains.

“It just gets stale. That’s why I left architecture … and the advertising business. I can’t sit on a stool all day,” he says with a laugh. “Sculpture better suits my temperament.”

His versatility, coupled with a warm sense of humor, is what keeps audiences revisiting his work year after year.

“The essence of Grande Jatte is a pun – it’s landscape of a landscape,” he says. “Along the same lines as Dadaism, I wanted to take the painting out of the temple of the orthodox – of high art, and put it in a different milieu – the pedestrian. I wanted it to span the gap between art and life.”

Mason’s sculpture exists at the crossroads between fantasy and reality, and urban and pastoral. His style carries a strong sense of tongue-in-cheek whimsy, but its references are clearly temporal. He’s very much a twenty-first century artist, simultaneously pulling inspiration from Impressionism, Surrealism, Dadaism and elements of folk art.   

Mason now lives in Lancaster and teaches general sculpture at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center, where he’s been instructing since 1967. He is currently represented by Hammond Harkins Gallery. www.hammondharkins.com

Artwork Below

1. The Goat Who Stares at Men (32 x 21 x 12 inches)

2. Cyanea (8 x 6 x 8 inches)

3. Clotho (53 1/3 x 17 1/2 x 12 inches)