FAQ

WHAT IS PRESSTUBE?

WHO IS JAMES PATERSON?

WHAT IS THE WORK AT PRESSTUBE ABOUT?

COLLABORATORS?

FAMILY?

GALLERY?

WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF PRESSTUBE?

AREN'T THERE ENOUGH "TUBE" NAMED SITES OUT THERE ALREADY?

MEDIUMS?

UPCOMING SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS?

WHAT IS PRESSTUBE?

Founded in 2000, Presstube is the personal space of Canadian artist, James Paterson.

WHO IS JAMES PATERSON?

-Born 1980, in London, England.
-Moved to Canada in 1988.
-Currently resides in Montreal.
-His Fingers and face growing steadily more sausage-like.
-He is an enthusiastic, though not particularly gifted skateboarder.
-Known to make stabbing mantis-like motions with his arms while singing improvised songs in a shrill vibrating voice.
-Exhibits mild bipolarity which is the source of both frustration and inspiration.
-Is a lover of chicken and most chicken related food items, most notably portuguese churrasco.
-Obsessive picker of scabs & popper of zits.
-Middle name, 'Cockburn'.
-Flavor of the month, documentaries.

WHAT IS THE WORK AT PRESSTUBE ABOUT?

-A drawing based diary.
-An exploration of proclivities, problems, desires & dreams.
-Confessions of shame and embarrassment; proclamations of love and admiration.
-Humanizing programming by bringing the sensibilities of old world art-making processes to contemporary high-tech.
-Drizzlings of self-pity and paranoia; rants of frustration.
-Heavily process driven formal wild goose chases.
-Stream of conciousness, graphic diahhrea, automatic drawing.

COLLABORATORS?

James has had a long standing collaborative relationship with NY based Amit Pitaru. Some of their earlier work together can be found at Insertsilence.com

More recently Pitaru & Paterson have teamed up with dancer/choreographer Dana Gingras and her newly founded organization, Animals of Distinction to produce the dance show, 'Smashup'.

Sewing virtuoso Jen Ham and James have been working together on handmade one of a kind toys like Crotchy.

Much of the music at Presstube, especially in the earlier work was created by Chicago's k-rad.

FAMILY?

James' Father Robert is a consultant, historian and avid blogger, and his Mother Robin is a housewife and hospice worker. James grew up with one sibling, his older sister Hope, who is currently working on improving the diet of children in Toronto's schools. Kids these days eat too many chicken fingers and get constipated all the time; then they turn into diabetic lard-asses with ADHD, Something must be done! GO HOPE GO!!

GALLERY?

James is represented by bitforms gallery in Chelsea, NY
529 west 20th street,
ny. ny. 10011
t. 212 366 6939

WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS OF PRESSTUBE?

Presstube was started in 2000 by James and two fellow NSCAD students, Robbie Cameron & Eric Jensen as a place to show their printmaking works online. After a while Presstube's initial identity as a collaborative printmaking site melted away to become Paterson's personal space and online home. 'Presstube' is a nonsense word that was cobbled together and intended to allude to printmaking and TV. Robbie Cameron, of the original PT triad now has his own site, VerySatisfied.com.

Predating Presstube, James' online prescence started out at the creative community halfempty.com in the late 90's. Halfempty is now the personal space of Marty Spellerberg.

James' earliest online works still live on at halfempty.com/sunday.

AREN'T THERE ENOUGH "TUBE" NAMED SITES OUT THERE ALREADY?

Predating YouTube by 5 years, 'Presstube' has nothing to do with the recent rash of 'Tube' names. PT is O.G!

MEDIUMS?

-Pens
-Paper
-Scanner
-Wacom Cintiq
-Flash / Actionscript

UPCOMING SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS?

FITC
TORONTO, CANADA
APR 20-22, 2008