Encounter is pleased to present James Collins – ‘Deltas’, opening on Thursday 19th March 2026. The exhibition marks Collins’ second solo show with the gallery and brings together a body of recent paintings produced between 2024–26.
Deltas form where rivers begin to slow and reshape as they evolve into different bodies of water. Under the right conditions, layers of fertile sediment build up until ground visibly breaks the surface, introducing alternate spaces and routes in these changeable sites. Collins’ abstract paintings echo this process — carving foundations and reforming pathways, they deposit a rich array of references as they journey through their painterly landscapes.
Each work is rooted in a syntax of recurring structures, forms particular to Collins. His compositions are constructed, excavated and dispersed repeatedly until an image starts to take shape. Built from latent traces and established over large passages of time, the paintings hold the history of their making in the dense ground from which they emerge. The works operate like a covered archaeological site, but one in which new forms grow over the scars of the land. Accumulated weight, arrangement of space and encrusted surfaces suggest underlying matter. Foundational lines and directional planes are left poised on the edge of tidal movement.
In this body of work Collins investigates the relationship between alchemy and objecthood in painting through his unique manipulation and moulding of surface and edge. Through interplays with oil, oil bar and raw pigment — alongside the use of unconventional tools for mark making — Collins pushes paint into foreign terrains. It becomes an unknowable substance. The paintings appear formed from living matter. Enigmatic deltas, operating within their own logic, both inside and outside of time.
The exhibition runs until 16th May 2026.
© Text and Photo courtesy of Encounter Gallery
