My Story

A bio written by Dean O’Loughlin – writer & musician:

James Weston was born in Coventry in 1974 though now lives and works in Lancashire.

I meet Jimmy in the mid-nineties in Moseley, Birmingham’s bohemian district. We both play in bands, like so many others searching for the record contract that would launch us out of our bedsits and into rock stardom.  Jimmy comes close.  Trips to America to hang out with Lenny Kravitz’s band, London labels taking the trip up to Brum to watch his band perform but ultimately the dream remained just that. 

It's painting and decorating that ends up paying the bills but anyone who knows him knows that’s not his destiny.

Fast forward to 2019 and Jimmy finds himself in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small village outside of Paris visiting the final resting place of Vincent Van Gogh. I see the photos of Jimmy sat in the chair in Vincent’s room.  
 
Later we speak on the phone. He tells me he had a bit of a moment sitting there in Vincent’s room. A feeling that was more than a feeling.  More like a visitation. ‘I’m going to start painting,’ he says.

Back in Lancashire he clears out his cellar, buys boards, brushes and as many oils as he can get his hands on.  There’s a frustrating period of staring at canvas, then experimenting, feeling like he’s wasting his expensive materials, feeling like this might all be a mistake but then the images start to appear, teased from the layers and layers of paint, each one new and unique.

Eventually he shares his work with me. Vivid, irresistible, compelling. It feels like he has found himself.