ART                                                                                                                                                             By Maximillien de Lafayette

James Langston

 A world-class artist made out of eloquent metal, splashes of lights and futuristic visions of the seen and hidden...

JAMES P. LANGSTON was born in Montgomery, Alabama, October 17, 1944 to a military family. He  lived on several military bases in many different locations and began teaching at Crystal River Primary in 1968, Florida He continued to work in the same county his entire teaching career while serving the community. His professional life has been devoted to teaching young people the skills necessary to succeed in life through a student-centered classroom where creativity, concentration, problem solving, self-efficiency and self-discipline are stressed. Married for thirty-two years; father of two grown daughters, grandfather of three. Langston lived for two years in Wiesbaden, Germany, as a military dependent and attended the University of Maryland in Frankfurt, Germany, for one year. His credits include: 2/23/2001- Visiting Lecturer at Troy State University, Troy, Alabama. 12/21/99-1/11/2000. 1999 Gold Medal at Biennale Internazionale Dell'Arte Contemporanea- Florence, Italy. 1970-1972. He initiated the Annual Teachers' Art Show in Citrus County. Shows were held at Crystal River Primary School. James Langston is more than an artist, he is a prophet, a writer, a teacher, a man of wisdom and...larger than life. Listen to Langston talking about his art, life, lights, shadows, geometry of forms and escapades of thoughts, and you will be transported to another dimension; a sort of an adjacent world you discover exclusively in the realm of an alert mind and a purified soul. He works with illusions, psychological space, geometric and organic shapes and sensory perception...and blends them into metal. And that metal serves him as his medium to express the intellect, the absurd, the future, the environment, the complexity of life and what hides behind the lights and shadows of the human mind and soul. He thinks deep and paints deeper. Langston's artwork requires your ultimate attention and an accentuated degree of concentration and unity with the inner feelings of the artist. Although, it is the metal that translates Langston's visions and soul on the landscape of art, this metal is alive and sublime in its eloquent and vibrant silence. Langston's artwork superb artistic quality is evident in the strength and tenderness of linear expressions, the organized and rebellious structural forms and the harmony between the artist's concise mind and his unorthodox conceptual organic art. His art unwillingly invites you to think and contemplate. Simultaneously, it leads you toward un-chartered lands and undefined frontiers of visions and inner feelings. A sort of an Hellenic labyrinthico-cosmological landscape enrobed with a direct dialogue with the nature you know and the "fantastic" you quest for in your daring intimacy. Langston's work is monumental in its concept, esthetical delivery and structural form. This is what you call a solid art form nourished with ideas, concepts, visions, discoveries and challenging unfamiliar beauty. I see it as a venerated icon on an austere altar as well as a challenging supra-modern ornamental definition in a contempo apartment. In that context, Langston's art unites the divine and the "living". James Langston is a world-class artist.

 

Dr. John T Spike wrote about Langston: “Over the past quarter-.century James Langston has created one of the deepest and most consistent bodies of contemporary American draftsmanship.  His chosen vehicle of expression is a kaleidoscopic labyrinth with no apparent exit.  But Langston's art celebrates the great paradox that the human presence is always enough to carry a glimpse of hope, no matter how dire the situation.  Through his ingenious titles (which only appear to be simple), Langston inserts the viewer's own hopes and optimism into his daunting, and brilliantly drawn, geometric landscapes.  Such were the criteria on which the Florence Biennale jury recognized James Langston with a Career Award. On a personal note I might add that during these last decades no one has done more to advance the cause of contemporary art in the state of Florida than James Langston.”