Jim Stella was born in Detroit,
Michigan, and by the time he had reached his teens, art
was his first love. He
moved to New York City in 1973, where he attended Pratt
Institute, concentrating on sculpture for a number
of years. He then moved back to Michigan to study at
The
University of Michigan School of Art, in Ann
Arbor and The
Center for Creative Studies in Detroit.
After that, Jim departed from the disciplines he'd
been trained in to focus on a new medium, painting. Since then,
he has traveled throughout the world, accumulating ideas
and influences for his paintings, the techniques for which
are entirely self-taught. |
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“Painting gives me a larger scale that I can work on without the
tools needed for sculpture, like the welding and the grinders, and
I can express myself better.
My mind works faster trying to put something down with a
paint brush than trying to work on a three dimensional sculpture,
because the sculpture takes longer to do.
Basically, I want to put my ideas down while they’re
fresh in my mind. I
have friends who are sculptors who will work for six months just
preparing for this, and over thinking a lot of it, but I don’t
want to do that. I
want my art to be very fresh, right from the mind to the
canvas.
Stella is possessed of a
singular, unique vision, with a large format as his modus
operandi.
“These
images come from everyday life, inspired by what might happens on
any particular day, or from listening to people and seeing how
challenging, confusing and stressful the world can be at times.
People take things so seriously most of the time, and they
have to ease up a little bit.
I feel that with my paintings, the colors can brighten a
person up, even when they reflect such stark realities as wasted parents,
cops
rousting bums, drunk drivers running people down and so
on. I
feel that if you take the time to actually sit down and look at the art,
you can find some fun
and some humor in it, but you can also find a lot of truth, and
that’s what I want to convey, a sense of empathy and connection
with the everyday world.
“I
didn’t want to get into something like still life where people
can look at it really quickly and say, “OK, this is it, I know
what that is,” and then move on.
I want to put a lot of different ideas into one painting.
A friend of mine who is a sculptor told me that you can
actually take one of my paintings and cut it into ten parts, and
each one of those could be a small painting.
But I don’t want to do that; I want to have a large area
in which I can put a lot of ideas, using the same qualities that I
would in a smaller painting.”
Vital Statistics
Born:
9/25/54, Detroit, Michigan
Education:
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
Columbia University Anatomy Class through the Pratt Institute
The University of Michigan School of Art Cum Laude (sculpture)
The Center for Creative Studies in Detroit (watercolor)
Exhibitions:
One Man Show, Rackham Galleries, Ann Arbor, MI
Art Exhibit, Rackham Galleries, Ann Arbor, MI
Eastern Market Exhibit, Detroit, MI
Michigan State Fair Exhibit, Detroit, MI (Gold Medal Award)
Gallery at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
Many juried shows.
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