Artist Statement

When I was very little, 4 or 5, I had a great interest for anything that contained something of aesthetic value. I drew everything that I found to be interesting from the moment I first picked up a crayon, pencil, pen. My father was an artist, and I have always had a striking eye for detail, so one can assume that the talent was inherited via my father. Once I realized the passion he put forth in his works, it only intensified the impact this had on me. It would seem as if part of his soul was infused within some of his works, almost like it jumped out in areas, when viewing them from different perspectives. I wanted that, that notion that I could somehow communicate through the beauty captured within a picture. I had always excelled within all of the art programs I had ever embraced, but I really did not understand my calling until later on in life, upon exiting the US Army and shortly after my father passed away (around 2000). The dust had began to settle and I had a deep unction to pursue fine arts completely. I took a few classes at Lansing Community College and immediately fell in love with oil paints. Everything about this began to take hold of me, as the idea of painting with oils seemed overwhelmingly romantic, the smell, the textures, the rich colors and how they blended together to create various forms, it was fascinating to me. My professor, Cassie Brogan, started to notice my potential, even when I did not, and she pushed me farther once she felt that I contained an unbridled passion for painting. She focused on fundamentals, repetition, visualizing forms in their entirety, overall composition and pushing to completion. The learning curve was fairly steep at first, but I enjoyed the fact that I could put the paint brush down and focus on visualizing, then return later because of the drying factors. Once I had been involved the first two years, to which, my focus was light and value, my paintings shifted from color to black and white to really understand this concept. It was quite brutal at first, but I pushed through the tough moments and gained quite a bit of understanding in relation to how light reacts to form. My first 3 or 4 paintings took anywhere from 6 - 12 months (on and off) to complete each, and contained various levels of difficulty, varying perspectives, larger sizes, more foreshortening, etc.... I can happily say I have moved on to color and I have the ability to push a painting out in a fraction of the time. Done in both black and white and color, I am now able to produce a painting (contently completed) anywhere from a few months to a few hours. Most of my learning came from studying forms, so naturally most of my content is of portraits but I do enjoy creating landscapes also. Landscapes contain a God-like element to me, as they illicit different awe inspired feelings and emotions, if done right. So here I am, painting away with reckless abandon at any and every subject that sparks my interest. My current mind state is to produce, produce, produce... and let the rest fall into place. My aim is to impact the world through my art, one painting at a time. 

Enjoy! ~ Jamie