"IT'S JUST LIKE CERAMICS IN A WAY. IF ANYBODY HAS DONE ANYTHING WITH CLAY, YOU KNOW YOU DON'T JUST MAKE A CLAY PIECE AND LEAVE IT OUT... THEY DO REQUIRE A SOMEWHAT LITERAL 'WATCHING PAINT DRY' LONG-TERM SESSION. YOU DON'T JUST PAINT THEM AND GO ONTO THE NEXT ONE."
American abstract painter James Walsh was born in Newark, NJ. He became an active member of the New York art scene in the early 1980's. Walsh's work follows in the modernist tradition of Pollock and others, but his style defies categorization, marked by dramatic paint effects and continual reinvention from work to work.
Recognizable for its waves of acrylic paint overlaid onto oceans of color, Walsh's art showcases a vast range of hues, from acidic primaries to foggy neutrals, applied via techniques that include gigantic brushwork and fluid pours. Surface effects feature flat color applications juxtaposed with transparent acrylic bases flecked with liquid paint, creating a distinctive visual texture. His works employ the entire depth of the canvas, enhancing the three-dimensional quality of his work.
In pieces like Onward North (2018), Walsh demonstrates his dynamic range. A bulging mass of lime and powder blue intrudes from the left, abutting a tortured surface of green, orange, brown, and Burnt sienna. The lower right features a quiet, translucent blue with submerged ovals, all beneath a pearly coating. Open A (2019), inspired by a guitar chord, showcases a simpler composition — white paint smeared with Ultramarine and aqua pushes around a thick ridge of flat black in a graceful swirl, revealing hints of ochre, red, and yellow-green.
Walsh's ability to generate visual complexity is evident in works like Natural (2019), which features a frosted sweep on the lower half, a coil of candy red, and troubled mashups of various colors. These elements cooperate as distinct units, resulting in a simple yet visually intricate composition.
Walsh has been featured in solo shows at Flowers East in London and the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon. His paintings are in selected collections at Edmonton Art Gallery, Alberta, Canada, the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY, the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada and the Portland Museum of Art, Oregon, where his work was exhibited in Clement Greenberg: A Critic's Collection.