This is what it looks like in the world.
James Warrender - Artist 02, Issue 000.
Artwork photo taken by @igggggggggy
Bold abstract figures built through oil pastel and acrylic. A silhouette that holds while colour and line break the rules.
Each piece starts with the figure. A presence that holds its ground while everything around it breaks apart. If you're wearing this, you're early to that shift.
The artwork lives on the back. The front stays clean.
Limited run. Authenticated. QR-linked to James's full story. Available in black or white tee.
Issue 000 launching 28 April.
🔗 Join the founding list — link in bio.
Three artists. One issue.
For the first time - together.
Sydney. Melbourne. Wellington.
Three cities, three chapters in the story of how Blank Slate Studios came to life. These are the first believers - creatives who said yes before the world knew what BSS was, and whose work is now the foundation of everything.
1️⃣ @derivastudios - alcohol ink and mixed media, Sydney, Australia
2️⃣ @warrenderjames_aw - oil pastel and acrylic, Melbourne, Australia
3️⃣ @siennawells - oil painting, Wellington, NZ
Issue 000 • Order and Drift — dropping soon.
#blankslatestudios #wearableart #emergingartists #issuezerozero #orderanddrift
Part 1 was where James came from.
This is what he decided to do about it.
At a residency in New Zealand, an art dealer stopped mid-conversation, looked at the painting, amd said like it was simply true: "That's what you do, huh? "
The painting was a Basquiat homage. And the comment sat with James - not as a compliment, not as a slight, but as a question he couldn't stop thinking about. What happens when someone looks at your work and sees someone else?
From that point, there was one thing he wanted: for someone to look at a painting and just know. No label needed. No context required. Just - that's a Warrender.
That drive is what pushed him toward something harder to achieve than technical skill - a genuine visual signature. Background and foreground bleeding together. Accidents left in. Forms that dont exist anywhere else.
He'd built real foundations in Wellington - gallery representation, collectors, a body of work that kept evolving. But Melbourne was a deliberate choice - to build on what he'd already established, and push himself further into new territory.
Art and fashion had always lived side by side for him - two disciplines that ask completely different things of the same person. BSS felt like the place where both could finally exist together.
Issue 000 is that moment.
Drop a comment if you want to know when it lands 👇
There's a particular kind of artist who doesn't wait for permission.
James Warrender sold his first painting at 17. Not at a gallery opening. Not through a dealer. In a mentors studio, on a two-meter canvas, to someone who recognised something in the work before James fully had words for it himself.
That was the first sign this was real.
He's been in the studio every day since. Not when inspired. Not when the conditions were right. Every single day - sketching, refining, building a visual language that kept getting more amd more his own.
The early influences are visible if you look. Picasso taught him that strange could be beautiful. Basquait taught him that raw could be powerful. But at some point, painting within someone else's framework - even a brilliant one - stops being freedom.
Real creative freedom is more exposed than that. More uncomfortable. And more completely yourself.
There's also work that sits even closer to home.
There's a painting he made for his dad, who passed away in 2022. It's still not finished. Some work isn't meant to be.
This is Part 1 of James's story. Part 2 explores the turning point, the work itself, and why he said yes to BSS.
James is one of the founding artists of Issue 000 - his work on a limited edition tee, his story attached, and a royalty every time someone carries it into the world.
Drop a 🖤 if James's story resonates.
Part 2 coming soon.
