Point of No Return

Transmitter is pleased to present Point of No Return, a solo exhibition by James Parker Foley. Made across a period of profound personal transformation, this exhibition brings together two bodies of drawings; a group of graphite images begun during a residency in Mississippi in October 2022, and a subsequent body of colored pencil works begun in October 2023. 

The first body of drawings emerged while the artist was privately grappling with a desire to live as a gay man. This secret desire became the narrative undercurrent for a hidden fantasy world, drawn on intimately-scaled paper in the vulnerable medium of graphite. The colored pencil works that followed a year later, after the artist had begun to transition, wrestle with what it means to be a man, and how to build a life for himself as a trans person. 

Together the two bodies of work reveal a landscape that tackles and celebrates multiple perspectives (internal, emotional and spatial). The relationship between the corporeal and the spiritual are not always in-sync as we move through our lives. Inevitably, we all experience the tension as well as the interdependence of the material and immaterial as we move through developments of self-discovery. The body and soul can be quarrelsome, mischievously inseparable companions that are bound to each other even as they pull in different directions, and they can also unite in moments of ecstasy and a perfect conversion. 

For Foley, the dream-like worlds within his drawings are places to physically and narratively work through the difficult labor of becoming oneself (including the curiosity and play that can accompany that challenging work). Foley’s lexicon of symbols–hats, purses, the moon, and traffic cones–serve as recurring characters that support the efforts the figures are undertaking: making peace with doubt, living with paradox and mystery, and embracing fantasy without judgment. 

The exhibition is installed chronologically, tracing the arc of this evolution. The earliest works in the show allowed the artist to envision parts of himself he could not yet articulate by any other means, the safety of a drawing practice became an engine for discovery, articulation and acceptance. Once a vision of this new self came into being, there was no living as anyone else. 

Genevieve Lowe, 2026