arts
For over 20 years Jim has created artworks in a broad range of media, including detailed ink drawing, pastels, charcoal, collage, gouache, cyanotype, acrylic and oils, and both analogue and digital photography. Stylistically not dissimilar to comparative themes displayed on film, his early inspirations were scenes of the nostalgic, struggling neighbourhoods around the Blackpool promenade in the late 1990s which he used to see on holidays as a child, where the colourful decadence of past decades has faded to near-dereliction. Following his comedic instincts, he started to combine this interest with a darkly comic series of “flat on” street scenes set in a run-down, made-up seaside town in the late 1930s, where there is a keen sense of humour running through the themes and phrasing of the various advertising boards and the predicaments of the local residents. Jim went on to produce over 40 of these original ink drawings.
He has also spent time painting, photographing and filming in Swanage, Dorset and on the Catalan coast, fascinated by expanses of light, land, sea and the basic, natural structural form of the earth: rock, wood, water, fire, smoke, clouds. Alongside these studies he began to paint city scenes, yet absent of human figures: deserted streets, empty alleyways, vacant hotel rooms, quiet diners; scenes caught in a momentary stillness, uninterrupted by human presence.
In the spring of 2020 the Dethick Brothers began preliminary development work on their third feature film. They amassed around four hours’ worth of 8mm and 16mm “found footage”, from as far afield as California, New Mexico, Nevada, South Dakota, France and Eastern Europe, specifically searching for scenes shot in remote, isolated and unusual places, and which could not easily be dated to any year. Some of these scenes, occasionally showing brief evidence of where ancient meets modern and the subtle, almost unseeable signs of human existence in an otherwise timeless landscape, informed a whole new series of charcoal and pastel drawings. The theme evolved into a collection of archaeological-like uncovered renderings of some long-happened immense catastrophe: desolate wastelands, burnt deserts, ruined cities, destroyed civilizations razed by incredible and violent force and presented in post-apocalyptic, almost otherworldly, hallucinatory images. Jim is working on presenting these as an exhibition collection in 2025.
Other important artistic inspirations are the collaborative works of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs, most notably their book The Third Mind, which opened up Jim’s understanding of the immense experimental possibilities for collage. Much of this influence can be seen in the photographed chapter titles of the film Johnson Pepperwood from Bosun Town (2018). Burroughs’ ‘cut-up technique’ also directly inspired the writing method for the story and script of this film.
Jim’s work has been exhibited and sold at galleries, events and private viewings in Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield, Derbyshire and the Peak District. As well as the aforementioned studies of landscape, he is also currently working on a series of large oil paintings exploring the often dark, unseen and forgotten sides of post-industrial towns in the north of England, as part of a musical, poetic and visual concept in the character of Rother Valley-born troubadour Chris Baughtcake, ongoing since 2022.
Below are a selection of Jim’s works.
crafts
Jim makes various luxury and practical handmade items, including carved smoking pipes and smoking racks, picture frames, microphone stands, work tables and easels, amongst other things. Below are a selection of handmade speaker cabinets designed and made by Jim, and used exclusively in the Dethick Brothers’ recordings.
design for films
From the days of producing their earliest films, the Dethick Brothers have often designed, built and dressed their own unique and sometimes elaborate sets. Though expensive, labour-intensive and time-consuming to make from scratch, this working method has given their films a distinctive look and feel, and has afforded them the precious advantage of artistic control when shooting. Focusing stylistically on a time period loosely set somewhere between the 1940s and 1980s, their practical interest in set and costume design, and also prop making, is crucial to their work, as is a determination to save, re-cycle, re-use and re-build as much and as often as possible.
