Christine James weaves the public language of science and her own relationship with the environment into the language of painting.  She engages with nature in a very personal and immediate sense, taking time to absorb the language and “feel” of the landscape before committing it to paper or canvas.  In particular, she has spent over a decade researching and painting the country around Weereewa/Lake George and her most recent paintings seek to honour the intricate ecosystem of the lake’s western catchment.  This land invokes a dichotomy of associations for Christine; on one hand it is a primaeval place, untouched by the settler plough, but, on the other, it is a familial location inhabited by her maternal ancestors.  Christine believes that to walk this country is to encounter a place that resonates with a living biodiversity of resilient beauty.  Her works draw together a post-colonial perspective about the land and a passion for conservation.

Christine James earned a Graduate Diploma in painting from the Australian National University Institute of The Arts in 1994, after which she travelled  to France, Germany, England, USA and extensively in India.  She has shown in over a dozen solo and group exhibitions since 1996, including her soloexhibition ‘Cooloola’ at the Canberra Museum and Gallery in 2004.  Her work is represented in public collections including Artbank, United Nations Centre for Human Settlement (Zimbabwe), ANU Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies and Parliament House.