“What goes too long unchanged destroys itself. The forest is forever because it dies and dies and so it lives” - Tales From Earthsea (2001) by Ursula Le Guin

Cyclical renewal. An ever-winding spring. Spiralling and spinning with input, conducting an orbit of transformational output. Oreka James’s A Chorus Of Shadows Along A Winding Path centres on the phenomenon that is transformation, exploring the cyclical inevitability and reoccurrences of change and how its processes are both physically and metaphorically experienced. 

Throughout the exhibition, transformation takes shape in works that conjure labyrinths, hybrid creatures, and doubles. These symbols and motifs represent change charted across cycles such as rebirth, destruction, and erosion. In the hardening 1 (2025), a scorpion and a human have fused together, becoming one and the other, a transformation that enables protection and survival. The sculpture’s sand-like surface points to how rocks become stones become sand. The title of the work reflects on the hardening impacts of heartbreak, sorrow, and internal conflict that can trigger metamorphosis and generate new strength. A scorpion must molt in order to grow, a process of shedding its exoskeleton repeatedly until they reach maturity, otherwise the rigid shell won’t grow with them. Because of this, the scorpion has become a symbol of protection, courage, and transformation, alongside death and rebirth. In the hardening 1 change and growth are intertwined, mirroring the human and the arachnid.

a feverish inquisition (2024) shows one character who is perceived as two, across nearly symmetrical depictions. One appears defeated and the other triumphant following a dangerous encounter that is represented by a sword. The painting explores personal duality and the inner turmoil that can occur when facing oneself, pursuing character building and asking what shapes us and how. Life’s turbulence shapes us again and again, like waves impacting a shoreline, infinitely transforming and transforming again. 

A site of metamorphosis that inspires James in A Chorus Of Shadows Along A Winding Path is a labyrinth. In stories about mazes, characters are reconfigured by their lone journey, during which they face their weaknesses and their strengths and exit its winding path anew. We can imagine the subject of a feverish inquisition in one, meeting their foe and in a stage molting. Incising marks in steel point (3) and steel point (4) (both 2025) depict spirals that reflect the design of labyrinths. Turning like cycles of evolution, decay, and renewal, spirals begin coiled and small, then spin and grow and spin and grow.

Text by Clara Puton

Oreka James - CV