James Drake (visual artist)

Tongue-Cut Sparrows was inspired by a system of sign language Drake observed women standing outside a jail in El Paso, Texas, used to communicate with prisoners on the inside. Fascinated by this inventive form of gestural communication, Drake became curious if the women could integrate quotes from literature and poetry into their sign language. They agreed to let Drake record their visits on video and worked with him in selecting texts to sign from the writings of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, Chicano-Apache American poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, Cormac McCarthy, as well as William Blake, William Shakespeare and Alighieri Dante.[5] The series evolved into multi-channel video works, photographs, printmaking and large-scale charcoal drawings. In the photo-realistic drawings, images of the figures are joined by some of the words that were communicated between the couples. Often, there is a breakdown, or strain, in the communication—a tension that is emblematic of Drake's ongoing interest in the social dynamics of borderlands.[6]

City of Tells is a series composed of drawings, split-screen video and an artist book. The work incorporates depictions of animals, portraits of family, friends, and diverse historical and contemporary influences such as Diego Rivera, Dante, Bruce Nauman, Murray Gell-Mann, La Malinche, Delacroix, Homer, Michelangelo, Herman Melville, and Goya. In gambling parlance, a "tell" is the subconscious broadcasting of one's emotional, psychological, and intellectual make-up.[7] In the large-scale Renaissance tableau inspired drawing, Drake uses the motif of the banquet table to reference biblical tales and cultural mythology. "City of Tells" addresses a collective Western history and the interconnectedness of animal and human life.[8] "Drake looks for the ‘tell,’ the sign that reveals the truth in his subjects and in him. The City of Tells addresses his concerns of the self-consciousness of culture and appetite of instinct."[9]

Over the course of three years Drake maintained a commitment to draw each day without pre-conceived content or form in mind. This daily discipline led to a stream of consciousness process, in which the completion of one drawing, prompted the creation of another. The body of work evolved into ten chapters of 1,242 drawings, each numbered in a chronological sequence to denote his daily ritual of mark making.[10] The project culminated in a touring exhibition opening at The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in 2014 and a publication by Radius Books. The monumental scale of the installed work "maps a space of humanity toggling between the languages of physics and poetry, illustrated by images of current events and cultural history."[11]

This ongoing body of work explores themes of social complexities surrounding intersections between chaos, desperation, and forgiveness.[12] The work grapples with some of the daunting, complicated questions facing a divided humanity. In 2022 the project matured into a collaborative performance that brings together Drake's visuals with artists from a number of different disciplines including writer Benjamin Sáenz, Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, New York performance artist Shaun Leonardo and Mexican multidisciplinary artist and flutist Alejandro Escuer.[13]