(b.1986) James Tottman is a British artist best known for his figurative oil paintings with distinctive flowing lines:

“My work explores the human experience, representing the small joys in life through form and figure, natural light, and flowing lines.

Lines sit at the core of my practice not just to describe form, but to suggest time, movement, and the sense of a moment passing. With a background working in film and video games, I tend to think in 3D space, and that perspective naturally seems to carry into my work.

Each line becomes a contour, a way of sculpting the figure, but they also capture something else, something transient. As your eyes follow each line across the figure it creates a sense of motion, a fleeting moment somewhere between observation and recollection. The repetition and rhythm bring an almost meditative structure to the work, satisfying a compulsive need for precision that I’ve come to embrace in recent years.

In many ways I’m painting how it feels to be human rather than how we physically appear. I’m especially drawn to sunlight and the mental benefits it brings us, when everything feels warmer, slower and more grounded. Light brings a sense of clarity, and with strong light comes deep shadows, adding depth and contrast to the form, allowing light to feel more intense.

My work depicts distant memories or feelings that are hard to discern. Like memories that have distorted and blurred over time, transforming into something more surreal, they become more dreamlike. Each piece is an attempt to capture them as something tangible as to express them in any other way is often impossible.”