Contact - , 612-702-5849,
883 Linwood Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105
My digital media prints are drawn and constructed on an iPad. It's like finger painting on a glass surface. I build layers of color, lines, shapes, and texture through a fluid, organic, multi-step process. I use the expressive potential of painting in collaboration with digital media. My original visual impulse moves through digital spaces, adding and subtracting along the way, forming and reforming until the final painterly/unpainterly image emerges on canvas, paper, fabric, or projected.
Fish, worms, human figures, creatures, crosses, sarcophagi, snakes and other personal iconography are visible in most of my work. They reveal faint narratives intended to trigger the imagination and are open to many interpretations. Other work is abstract or semi-abstract. My colors are rich and varied. My shapes, marks, compositions are intuitive. I hope people will engage with my images, or be challenged by them, or simply embrace the moment of seeing something new.
Whether I finish my digital media prints on canvas, paper, fabric, or projected, these are the intended final forms.
They are not referential or photographs of paintings. My work has a unique presence and identity all its own.
James Byrne
2020 Exhibitions
Zacheta-National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Early American Video Art
Vine Arts Center, Minneapolis, Art Inspired by Music, group show
Miami Dade College Museum of Art and Design, Miami, November 2020
Jimmy Wilson Gallery, Minneapolis, Guest Artist
2019 Exhibitions
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, The Body Electric, group show
Rogue Buddha Gallery, Minneapolis, Mourning Glory, group show
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, The Body Electric, group show
2019 Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, Made in Minnesota Short Films
James's earlier videos and video installations are in the permanent collections of prestigious museums around the world including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Kunstmuseum, Bonn; Banff Center for the Arts, Banff; The Kitchen, New York; and Film Anthology Archives, New York, and others.
His work has earned fellowships and grants from Bush Foundation, Jerome Foundation, McKnight Foundation, MSAB, and NEA.
James earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Video Art from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and completed additional graduate study at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York. He has a Bachelor of Elected Studies from the University of Minnesota.
"Scale Drawing" - Yerba Buena Center for the Arts - San Francisco 2019
"Scale Drawing" - Walker Art Center - Minneapolis 2018
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