by James Bourbon
SOL Gallery
420 Brunswick St Fitzroy
18 – 30 Nov 2025
Gallery Hours: Tue - Sun 11:00am – 6:00 pm
Memory, Myth & Magic is James Bourbon’s first solo exhibition in Melbourne in two years. This new body of collage-based paintings and works on paper excavates forgotten fragments of twentieth century mass culture, from advertisements to propaganda and discarded print. Through painting, these materials are rebuilt into contemporary mythologies.
Memory, Myth & Magic sees James Bourbon transform discarded media into haunting collage-based paintings. Through layered reconstruction, he explores memory's distortions and the myths mass culture embeds in our collective psyche.
Meet the artist
James Bourbon is a self-taught visual artist based in Meanjin (Brisbane). He works across painting, collage, photography, textiles and installation. His practice explores the visual residue of modern life, the symbols and fragments that shape memory, identity and belief.
Drawing from a personal archive of found imagery and printed ephemera, Bourbon creates layered works that blur the line between critique and mythology. His approach is rooted in research and remix, turning fragments of the past into contemporary relics that speak to the present.
“My work begins in the past, but it is always about the present. Each fragment becomes a way of asking how culture leaves its mark on us.”
Past work
James has exhibited across Australia and internationally, including in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago and London. Recent highlights include being selected for State of the Art: Reimagining Queensland at Rockhampton Museum of Art, launching his book Many Types of Horror at the Institute of Modern Art, and his 2023 solo exhibition Physical Reality at Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne.State of the Art: Reimagining Queensland
Rockhampton Museum of Ar
Many Types of Horror Book Launch
Institute of Modern Art
Physical Reality
Backwoods Gallery
The Inspiration
These works come from an age where truth is malleable, nostalgia is manufactured and misinformation is weaponised. We are bombarded by images that infect memory, distort belief and program the collective unconscious one fragment at a time.
Behind the scenes
The work begins with research, scanning archives, digging through discarded magazines, leaflets and ephemera. Fragments are cut, collected and collaged into new compositions.
From there, Bourbon painstakingly rebuilds them in paint. The black and white style echoes photocopy textures, stripping images back to their raw graphic core. Each work becomes an act of archaeological recovery, where memory and myth overlap.
Research
Collage
Paint
Experience the work
Memory, Myth & Magic opens at SOL Gallery, Melbourne on Wednesday 19 November 2025. This is the first opportunity to see James Bourbon’s new series in full, with large scale canvases and works on paper transforming fragments of the past into contemporary myth.
Visitors are invited to join the opening night or attend during the exhibition run. A full catalogue of available works will also be released, with early access for those who register interest.
VIEW WORKS
“In the gallery the fragments reveal their influence, how images that once slipped past us continue to shape who we are.”