James Unsworth

Born into a working class family in Liverpool in 1979 I graduated from the Royal College of Art in London in 2006, since then I‘ve been awarded various prizes, grants, residencies and awards. In my career so far I’ve been included in museum shows at public institutions while continuing to exhibit in solo and group exhibitions at private galleries around the world. My books have previously been published by Ditto Press and are distributed internationally by Antenne, they have been reprinted on numerous occasions. My works and publications are held in various public and private collections. In 2021 I self published a different zine every month collecting different series of work I’ve made over the past 15 years.

James Unsworth, Ancient Greek Ceramic Plate Drawings, James Unsworth, 2021 © James Unsworth

This is the second of 12 monthly publications I produced throughout 2021.

In 2019 I made a drawing a week based on Ancient Greek ceramics from room 20a in the British Museum and contemporary models sourced through Instagram. This publication collects the whole series.

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James Unsworth, Beauty, James Unsworth, 2021 © James Unsworth

This publication collects digital collage works made from photographs I’ve taken over the last few years. They’re a continuation of a series of analogue collages I made from copies of Bulk Male magazine and gardening books which I complied in another publication: Bulk Male Flower Collages 2017.

The models were photographed in Newcastle, London, Liverpool and Colchester between 2018 and 2020.

The flower images were digitally cut and the collages were assembled in July and August 2021.

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Fat Guys are the Best / Fat Guys are the Worst

Fat Guys are the Best’ and ‘Fat Guys are the Worst’ are a pair of books based on the same compositions taken from Bulk Male Magazine (a pornographic magazine catering to larger men and their admirers published between 1991 and 2003), one book transcribes these compositions into scenes of happiness and joy the other depicts nightmarish scenarios.

‘Fat Guys are the Worst’ includes backgrounds inspired by two Toshio Saeki books: Chimushi I (1995) and Chimushi II (2003).

The books explore themes of desire, fatness, gender, sexuality, print culture, sexual subcultures, 90’s - 00’s pop culture, horror and humour.

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