Collector Profile: James Roland and Becky Sparks

The inner Sydney apartment James Roland and Becky Sparks share with their one- year-old son Henry, with its kitchen for one, wide wall of reference books, odd objects, salon-hung hallway, and small bedroom where Shaun Gladwell and Alan Jones hang like quotation marks at either end of the bed, appears like a still life of their approach as collectors. It is a home where art lives democratically with their real life.

When Roland and Sparks married, they made a promise to buy a piece of art to celebrate every wedding anniversary. At the end of their first year as newlyweds they had bought seven pieces and now, after nine years together, they have over 250 works in their collection, much of which is on loan to institutions, exhibitions and a few lucky friends. “We became addicted to it. We’ve probably spent a ridiculous amount relative to our earning; hence we’ve got a kid and live in a one bedroom flat,” Roland says laughing. As young enthusiastic collectors starting out, they were advised to develop a methodology to reign in their passion and give greater shape to their collection. “Also James would buy everything if he could,” Sparks adds. “He really would.” They decided upon a methodology that was simple yet significant: collecting the art of their contemporaries. They found that emerging and mid career artists of their generation were conceptual and technical risk-takers and they felt the significance of giving younger artists emotional and financial support at the beginning of their careers.

“You don’t just go from art school to the Museum of Contemporary Art. There is a period in the food chain where people with boring jobs, like Becky and I, need to fund creative people to produce work,” Roland says. “It’s not wholly altruistic because we really enjoy it, but one thing I do say to people is it’s not just about the commodity, it’s also about the relationships you build.” The couple maintains close friendships with many of the artists they collect, and have a genuine curiosity about the stories their works tell. As a testament to this, a carved wooden VB longneck in a brown paper bag sits on a shelf in their home – a gift for Roland’s birthday from the artist Marley Dawson. The first works they bought as a couple that were indicative of the direction their collection would take were Newell Harry’s Untitled (‘Koffie Moffie’), a scrawled text work that explores language and identity, and an abstract figurative painting by Alan Jones that now hangs in their hallway. “Both are works from 2006 which we bought at a similar time. Both are young artists, who were still emerging at the time, both of whom we have got to know and continue to follow their practice,” Sparks says.