James Ulmer: Red Couch

Antifurniture, 2025. Postcard zine; 18 archival inkjet prints, sewn. 

Lettered edition, 26 copies + 4 APs.

"James Ulmer began the Red Couch series by wanting to paint an interior corner. He'd been doing big, outdoor paintings, grounded with a long horizon line. Often, they had an active, sporty feeling: in the water, swimmers and rowers; on the road, runners and drivers. By taking on a corner, James started on a fresh new series. The "Red Couch" paintings are inside pictures, rested, and posed. 

For an artist like James, a rigorously disciplined image builder, painting a corner is serious business. It reminds me of how Art Spiegelman described Ernie Bushmiller's cartoons in terms of irreducible concept. It took exactly three lines to get James where he wanted to be. 

The couch paintings are interior images because of how three vectors converge, forming three surfaces: two vertical, one horizontal. Another meandering line does not mark the surface– it's path creates the mass of an object, grounded in the conjured room. So, what is that object?

James often invites his family into his paintings; they are his favorite people. And as the saying goes: the chairs are where the people go."