Gonna tell my kids this was Marcus Aurelius

Rogers’ series of etchings: The Measurements of Men and their High Horses questions the faithfulness of monuments erected in the name of historic figures. The title of the exhibition is derived from a well-known meme and fabled story of an equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, that only survived from antiquity because it was presumed to depict Constantine. This historic uncertainty leaves space for Rogers to ask further questions about masculinity and how we are remembered. The starting point for these works is a 3D scan of Rogers wearing an inflatable dinosaur costume, a playful nod towards these statues. Through his own revisionist working process, the final image transforms to resemble that of Marcus Aurelius sat upon his horse.

Stiff necks make the most barbaric of beasts, sometimes they turn their heads in relief or rebellion (Stories of scars and stripes)

Oil paint over sanguine ink etching on velin arches cream paper
Unique
2021
Plate size: 110 x 88mm // Sheet size: 280 x 200

"It’s a weird task to try and measure men, they tend to prefer measuring themselves in inches, but sometimes you can measure them by the size of their cars, or the length of their conversations.
These are their high horses: a certain kind of enlargement or extension that may elevate you above the rest - at certain heights you run the risk of falling to your death. With bigger beasts come bigger problems, particularly when they’re unpredictable creatures. Sometimes you find them wild, with sharp teeth and bulging muscles, or other times cast into bronze, behaving themselves in the middle of town centres. The issue here is you show only one aspect of man: in control of his steed, in full military uniform, and doing his best to earn his stars and stripes. In very much the same way as these problematic sculptures are being pulled down and broken across the floor, this series examines what happens when men fall off their horses, becoming a series of mechanical and hand drawn lines that are etched across a copper plate."

"I began this project with a 3D motion capture study of myself atop an inflatable dinosaur fancy dress costume. A nod in the direction of those ridiculous equestrian statues. From this starting point, I searched for the moment of transformation, the sort that begins with a series of mechanically glitched lines and ends with the man losing control of the beast he once tamed. It rises up against him and he loses balance; the militant uniform has transformed into a pink dress hanging from his hips."

Its relatively simple to train yourself into a perpetual motion machine, it just costs a head each time (Pay per play and throw away)
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‍Oil paint over sanguine ink etching on velin arches cream paper
Unique
2021
Plate size: 110 x 88mm // Sheet size: 280 x 200

Rogers employs digital assistants to replace the traditional studio apprentice and the pairing with Benappi’s Old Master paintings explores the new role of technology as a creative partner. Rogers is engaged with his brigade of 3D scanner, Raspberry Pi and hacked printing machine that can extrude clay or wax and etch plates, in the making of sculptures and etchings that are hybrids of organic and mechanic effort to the extent that the artist is not sure where one finishes and the other starts within the work.

I wish I was level headed enough to balance the both of us (twins)
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‍Cast and patinated bronze
Unique
2022
18 x 11 x 33cm
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A study in the possibility of a man taking so much on the chin that his jawline stopped the feelings falling out of his mind (Rock Drill/ Mandibular Man)
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Cast and polished bronze
Unique
2022
11 x 12 x 33cm

Sometimes weight hangs like a dress, sometimes it hangs like a boulder (Over the shoulder boulder holder)
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Sanguine and cobalt two colour etching and aquatint on paper
Edition of 22
2022
Plate size: 210 x 148 // Sheet size: 280 x 381mm

“It seems a natural law to follow the path of least resistance, sometimes it may be electricity moving through a circuit board, abscission with trees in the winter, or even the seasonal patterns shared between leaves and people as they too spring and fall. Engraving images into brass isn’t the easiest of tasks, but you do see it, individuals walking around with boulders on their shoulders, occasionally you can spot it in their posture, or the way that even the slightest thing can throw them off balance - particularly when they’re this top heavy.Whilst now being forced to carry this weight, pushing up against the fragments of planets that he has balanced across his shoulders, it wasn’t always this way. He’d began his journey in the saddle, some would say that he once learnt to wield nature - as opposed to now being crushed under it.

Etching, originally pioneered by Daniel Hopfer in the late Fifteenth Century as a means to decorate armour, I’ve found it an excellent technique in reversing the sort of emotional armouring that tends to build up in these characters - who can blame them with giant weights to bear. Beginning here with a study of myself, 3D scanned in an inflatable dinosaur suit in a sort of nod to those equestrian statues, the image is redrawn across three plates - if the machine were to be left alone, they would be identical. However, through a combination of mechanical glitches, and hand rendered mark making, the images transform upon each repetition. [William S.] Burroughs in his treatment of the cut-ups once said ‘When you cut into the present, the future leaks out’.

Beginning in the saddle, nature dominated and behaving itself beneath him, sat atop an inflatable dinosaur suit from a studio in Brixton - I load up the brass plates onto the bed of the machine - each covered in a thin black layer of wax, and the machine loaded with the steel etching needle. As the machine begins to hum, drawing across the plate and removing the thin wax ground along with it, certain interactions begin to occur. Motors judder out of place, his steed has transformed into a sort of dress below him, I notice the ground has been thrust up into the sky - I grab another etching needle and quickly complete the demonic figure that has begun to appear amongst the glitches. At one point a small bird began to rise from a cup placed on the ground - I knew instantly he wasn’t a threat though - the eyes of predators are never as far apart as his were.

And so, his story continues across the remaining two plates, at one point losing the weight of the boulder but finding himself puppeteer-ed from the same shoulders by another individual, and now the tension that had freed itself from his upper body - seems to have conducted itself down to his legs, which stood crossed below him - he realised he would soon tie his knee’s in knots if he tried to walk this way.

Circuitry tends to form orderly closed loops, whereas these puppet strings, my nerves and stomach just tend to form knots (The only logical difference is that electricity will pick the path of least resistance)
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Sanguine and cobalt two colour etching and aquatint on paper
Edition of 22
Unique
Plate size: 210 x 148 // Sheet size: 280 x 381mm

Whilst he could no longer control whether he would fall or not, he simply had to choose whether he fell backwards into a thing of beauty, or forwards into a four legged beast (An answer to the sisyphean problem)
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Sanguine and cobalt two colour etching and aquatint on paper
Edition of 22
Unique
Plate size: 210 x 148 // Sheet size: 280 x 381mm

Machines judder, circuit boards flash, and I force the machine further in and out of place. The third plate begins to appear, he seems to be nearing the completion of his journey as he reappears back atop his steed, some strange marks form in the sky - that only as he looked closer amongst the clouds of the aquatint box - form themselves into flying beasts of some sort. He also for a brief moment spotted a strange character enticing him off into the distance - sort of like a water nymph, still wearing the speedos from the sea but now sporting the body of a racing horse. And the final brief moment in which his legs were yet to fully appear, and he had to choose whether to answer the problem of being a four-legged beast as [Henry] Moore did - lay back and deal with things gracefully. Or as [Lynn] Chadwick did - lean forward, as though to do a push up, and resemble some sort of four-legged beast.

And so he did, he leant forwards, the beast grew a sort of beard from its chin, and he continued to move along the brass - boulder pinched under his arm, and the reigns in his other.”

James Rogers (b.1993,Wolverhampton) explores figuration in the realm of the post digital age. Growing up on the outskirts of ex-industrial Wolverhampton, Rogers was often confronted with the pride of the Black Country’s industrial history, but also the realisation that there was a new digital landscape emerging. Some of his earliest influences came about through his father who worked as an electrician, and his grandfather, a skilled glass engraver to the local towns and their kilns. Rogers work often begins with performance motion-capturing and 3D scanning himself performing acts of labour or dressed in an inflatable dinosaur suit. With the help of his 1.5m³ self-built 3D printing machine he is able to push these studies through a series of sculpting and drawing processes that blend both mechanical and hand sculpted (or drawn) elements together to find a certain momentof metamorphosis, in which the individual transforms. These processes involve extruding blocks of clay into coils, melting and constructing wax for casting or by fitting the printer with an etching needle, to connect his sculptural investigations to his works on paper as the mechanical pathways become depicted in lines. His work explores themes of connection, dependency, and how these tendencies are mirrored into our technological networks, and then fragmented or even broken as they translate themselves into digital information, physical emotions, then back again. What emerges are works that explore themes of masculinity throughout history, especially motifs of equestrian monuments.