James Mercer’s lines both describe and wander as if stretching perception into improvisation. They are uncertain, jittery, wormlike marks that drift across the page gathering associations, forming freaky maps and scenes of urban life.
His grids and mapping systems never fully organize experience. Instead, they resemble the nervous aura of order constantly dissolving under the pressure of being a sensing human. Lines loop and snag like leftover string beans or tangled cords, and while it seems like these forms would produce anxiety, they are moving and relatable with their wry humor and sensitive construction.
Buildings, bugs, quarters, almonds, storefronts, and fragments of skyline all appear within the same field. Here, Mercer collapses scale into psychic weather. The drawings produce an aura of janky interconnectedness, as though the world were held together by coincidence, residue, and vibes. In Mercer’s work, improvisation becomes a mode of seeing that is open-ended, chemical, and alert to the strange democracy of urban detail.
