The title of James Inscho’s show — “three left, one right” — doesn’t refer to dancing.
“The works are abstract, but deal with the ideas of revisiting, reliving, and reconstructing fragments of observed moments and felt experiences,” says Inscho, 40. “So, the title means a few different things to me.
“Three left turns is one right, and that’s the long path we take to arrive at a simple decision. The other interpretation is three lefts plus one right is a 180-degree turn, and that’s a return to where you came from.
“Rather than thinking of it as directions left to right, you can think of it as three options remaining and one is correct.”
“Left” can mean a direction, but it also can refer to what’s left when something is taken away. “And ‘right’ can be a right turn or it can mean ‘right’ as in what’s correct.”
Inscho includes 30 acrylic gouache paintings in the show. “The works are kind of defined by a shifting of space and context. Brushstrokes become shadows. They become forms. They become space. The paintings are in a state of flux.”
The show, “in a sense, speaks to the beauty and uncertainty and the simultaneity of our access to all these different perspectives at a moment’s notice of every event, everything that happens. Seeing experience through a lot of eyes at one time.”
As the press release states, “We might see flat brown brushstrokes criss-cross a flame-red field. Matte black marks become shadows, and now the brown strokes are transformed into sticks, a pile of logs, a mound. It takes so little for the mind to write a story. Look again and it’s only brushstrokes.”
Painting abstract works was not what Inscho originally wanted to do growing up in Dothan, Alabama. “I really wanted to be a Disney cartoonist.”
He remembered watching Disney artists in the animation studio on trips with his parents to Orlando, Florida. “I just remember people working on The Lion King when I was a kid.”
Inscho, who played basketball and golf as a kid, also held an interest in music. “I learned guitar playing on my dad’s classical guitar when I was 8 or 9. Just kind of self-taught.
“I bounced around schools and I pursued a lot of different interests. I was interested in architecture at one point.”
Inscho first moved to Memphis in 2004 because he “just wanted a change of pace.”
While at University of Memphis studying graphic design, Inscho took a painting class with Chuck Johnson “and really took to the medium and the language and the history.”
Inscho, who got his BFA in 2011, had never lived in a big city like Memphis, which he felt “was a bit more cosmopolitan. I had a lot more to learn about life, and art provided a vessel for figuring some stuff out.”
Inscho then went straight to grad school at Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he lived for 11 years. “I had some shows and some interest and kind of rode that little bit.
“I had several years after grad school where I ran off the fumes of what I accomplished at grad school. And that summer following graduation I kept making work, but things kind of petered out after a few years and I hit a cross-point with my work. It felt like the way I was working wasn’t right for me anymore. I was just feeling a different way about life. Things needed to change to line up more with how I was experiencing things. So, I started from the ground up again.
“I withdrew from the art community in Philadelphia and hunkered down in my studio and tried to figure stuff out. I felt like I was banging my head against the wall for three or four years.”
He turned from making larger, more geometric paintings to smaller ones, which were “more improvisational. More gestural. More evidence of the hand.”
In 2022, Inscho returned to Memphis, where his wife, Whitney Hubbard, is from. “Moving back provided an opportunity to reprioritize and revisit what I wanted my life to be like post-Covid. I wanted to be an artist that’s more engaged with my community.”
He found Memphis to be “such a wonderful” city, where “people have time for you” and “energy as a creator here is really good.”
Inscho reached out to Tops Gallery owner Matt Ducklo, who he met when he first lived in Memphis. “I think Matt just has a really great eye. And it’s a very contemporary space. It’s quirky. It’s a basement space.”
The gallery also “gets national attention. I know he brings in artists from New York and other areas to show in Memphis.”
Inscho has found Memphis to be a “very prolific” time for him since he moved back. “I started making these small paintings six years ago. They’re starting to enter a more mature vision than when I started. I think I’m starting to hit a stride with these pieces.
“When I first started, I didn’t know what a good brushstroke looked like.” But things changed back in Memphis. “I was learning to trust my hand as a painter for the first time.”
Inscho and Memphis are a good fit. “I am a rabid Grizzlies fan. I really enjoy cooking. And I have started to play golf again since I was a kid because there’s so many affordable courses in the city.”
Most importantly, “Memphis is an artistic community. While I was living in Philadelphia, Crosstown happened. TONE started. Tops Gallery started. And now Sheet Cake [Gallery] just opened. It feels like a good time to be an artist in the city. I’m happy to be back.”
“three left, one right” is on view through March 9th at Tops Gallery at 400 South Front.