Herman James

ABOUT 

The undersea world is eternally attractive to us. Since our beginnings, humans have retained a deeply-held sense that the ocean was our primordial home. Science tells us this is quite literally the case. We are sea creatures that decided to come out onto the land.

During our early human development, before spreading up out of Africa, we continued to be nurtured by the ocean. We consumed brain-building nutrients along ocean shores and followed those shores to new lands, noting the paths of the sun and planets traversing what we imagined to be a starry ocean above us.

Herman James was born and raised in Portland, Oregon where he began making art when he was quite young. At age 12, James began formal studies with nationally-known book illustrator Colista Dowling, focusing on drawing the human form in graphite, and then oil paint. His focus on the human body continues to this day.

James’s family maintained a second home on the Oregon coast, where he loved exploring tide pools and collecting seashells. When he was 10 he sent a few olive shells to the Emperor of Japan, who James knew to be a dedicated amateur ocean scientist and specimen collector. He received a gracious reply from the Japanese Consulate in Portland. Later he learned these wonderful shells, native to the Northwest, are sacred to the Makah and are used in tribal ceremonies.

James remembers many family camping trips along the Hood Canal and at Sequim Bay State Park, both on the Olympic Peninsula, where he fished for lingcod and explored the Olympic Mountains by car with his parents and siblings. As a result of these special moments in the Northwest woods, the Pacific Coast, and the Salish Sea, the artist developed an abiding love for nature which comes through powerfully in his work.

As an adult, James has spent significant time showing his work in New York City and Boston as well as in several cities in Europe. He also owned and operated a gallery in New York City as well. Recently, the Northwest has called him back, and he now has a home in Port Townsend, Washington not far from the places where he camped those many years ago. Living near the forest and close to the many nations of the Coast Salish peoples along their Salish Sea has brought new energy to his work.

James believes that surreal imagery carries our minds and psyches in more powerful ways than traditional representation. The artist also believes that paintings, unlike other forms of picture making such as digital images, suggest the immediacy of an artist’s thinking process. As the artist moves hand and brushes over paper or canvas or board, he believes that this evidence of creative thought is left behind as a kind of archaeology made available to the viewer's eye.

In his recent work James blends aspects of human physicality with that of the creatures of the sea that we rely upon for sustenance and more. In so doing the artist offers observations about the current assertive reemergence of the First Nations peoples living their lives as they work to reclaim tribal lands, waters, territories, languages, origin stories, sacred places, and much more. These are necessarily seen as being between First Nations peoples and the colonizers of their lands and waters and the drama that arises as they try, and sometimes struggle, to come to terms with living with each other.  

CV

When asked for a CV for a recent exhibition, Herman James decided to tell the more interesting story of his life as a showing artist rather than reducing the richness of his experience down to the usual bulleted list of exhibitions and accomplishments. This narrative is below, with only the occasional inserts of the usual bulleted lists.

James as a Gallerist

From 2007 to 2011 Herman James owned and operated Climate Gallery LLC, a New Contemporary Art gallery in Long Island City/Queens in New York City. The gallery was located in the Silks Building, very near The MOMA’s PS1, and two stops into Queens from the 59th Street Bridge on the F train. This area was, and still is, at the center of an enclave of many artist studio buildings and galleries. The Silks Building, in particular, was a hub of creative activity including dance studios, architect offices, artist studios, publishers, and more.

Climate Gallery was so named because James wanted the work shown there to reflect the “climate of the times.” This work, called New Contemporary Art, is a creative moment in art that owes no allegiance to the “schools” and aesthetic positions of the mainstream and includes the vibrant arts of the street (that are more than just graffiti), pop-surrealism, Japanese anime and manga, Illustration plus the many independent and idiosyncratic visual arts practices seen today. Additionally, many students of art, especially in painting, are now coming out of university art schools incorporating aspects of New Contemporary Art into their aesthetic positions.

An important part of the mission of the gallery was to help support national and international artists who needed a next step in their career development. Through thematic group shows, the gallery provided opportunities for artists to be seen by prominent curators and gallerists in New York City. With this goal in mind, these curators and gallerists were invited to the gallery to identify artists from each show for special mention and inclusion in a catalog documenting their selected work. On several occasions, when shows matched the expertise of an invited curator and gallerist, they played particularly active co-curator roles. A few examples of shows that were co-curated with Herman James are listed below:

  • Zeros and Ones: New Media in the Digital Age co-curated with Whitey Flagg
  • Focal Resolution 1, an international photography show, co-curated with (the late) Bonni Benrubi of the Bonni Benrubi Gallery
  • Putting It All Together: Collage, Montage, and Assemblage, an international show co-curated with Dale Copeland of Taranaki Arts in New Zealand and Jonathon Talbot in the U.S and with help from Pierre Varet of the Musee Artcolle in France
  • Die Zeit of Drawing: The Time of Drawing, an international drawing show recognizing the expanding limits of current mark-making co-curated with U.K. artist and curator Angela Gram.
  • Art of the Book, an artist’s books show, co-curated with Maddy Rosenberg of Central Booking Gallery

Because the gallery often scheduled cultural events such as readings, musical performances, and theatrical events to coincide with gallery openings, shows were typically very well attended, and the artists’ work on display received a good deal of attention.

Also, during these years at Climate Gallery, James worked closely with Michele Maigret to strengthen the gallery sales effort. Before joining the staff at Climate Gallery, Maigret was a former director at C24 Gallery in Manhattan, a gallery manager at Dillon Gallery, and the personal assistant to Bob Fishko, the director of Forum Gallery. Maigret was also the personal assistant to the internationally known French assemblage artist, Arman, just before his death. Given this last experience, she brought special expertise to the curation of the international show Putting It All Together listed above, as well as other shows.

James also managed the finances of the gallery, supervised the staff of interns working in the gallery, organized strategic media placements, and took care of many other aspects of the day-to-day running of an art gallery in New York City.

James as an Artist in the Boston Area and Maine

In 1993 after a move to the Boston area, Herman James founded Mystic Studios in nearby Somerville where he became very active in the arts community. He was soon awarded an NEA Grant through the Somerville Arts Council.

James was given gallery representation at Kougeas Gallery in East Boston and Space 12 in the South End, where his one-person show Kitty Kaos was reviewed by Cate McQuaid for the Boston Globe. In Newton the artist showed a large wall installation and several paintings in a one-person show at the New Art Center curated by Paul Weiner. In Brookline, James was awarded a one-person show at the Brookline Center for the Arts titled The Amoeba and the Duck. James was also included in a large group show at the Somerville Museum, where his work was given special attention by Nick Capasso, curator at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln. During these years, the artist also participated in the massive Somerville Open Studios. In Somerville artists were so numerous they were a powerful political force in the city. From 2014 to 2018, James also showed with Flat File Boston, which provided private representation by Mika Hornyak and Sara Dassel, who sold directly to collectors in staged shows attended by special invitation.

For many years the artist has enjoyed a busy summer season along the “Down East” Maine coast. In the 1990s James showed with Aurelia “Thistle” Brown at Wingspread Gallery in Northeast Harbor on Maine’s Mount Desert Island. Currently, the artist shows with the Deer Isle Artists Association in Deer Isle Village, Maine. The entire coastline of the Northeastern U.S. is a popular summer playground for many art enthusiasts, and this is especially the case for Maine, where collectors from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia come to view and purchase art.

James as an Artist in New York City

For many years, Herman James maintained a studio at Trestle Art Space in Gowanus, Brooklyn. During these years the artist was represented by the following galleries:

  • Joyce Goldstein in SOHO
  • Monique Goldstrom in SOHO
  • Denise Bibro in Chelsea

The artist also had the following one-person shows:

  • MicroMuseum in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn curated by Kathleen Laziza
  • Ariel Gallery in SOHO curated by Miki Kahana
  • Limner Gallery on Broadway, Manhattan curated by Tim Slowinski

For a time, the artist was a member of the prestigious Amos Eno Gallery in SOHO, which was the first co-op gallery in the country. Ivan Karp, the director of O.K. Harris Gallery and famous for representing Andy Warhol at the Leo Castelli Gallery, attended the opening of the artist’s one-person show at this gallery.

James also participated in numerous group shows, two of which were particularly prestigious:

  • The 1997 NYU Small Works exhibition showed two pieces by James, and both were awarded honorable mention by the curator, gallerist Edward Thorp
  • The Joyce Goldstein Gallery’s important group show Sub-Rosa included several pieces by James along with work by artists Stephen Lack and Agnes Denes. His work received recognition from Willoughby Sharp, founder of Avalanche [Arts] Magazine, who later became a friend.

The other group shows include the following:

  • Dutch Kills Gallery in Long Island City, Queens
  • Joyce Goldstein Gallery in SOHO
  • Monique Goldstrom Gallery in SOHO
  • Denise Bibro Gallery in Chelsea
  • AMMO in DUMBO (meaning: Down Under the Manhattan Bridge) in Brooklyn
  • Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC) in Red Hook, Brooklyn
  • Trestle Gallery in Gowanus, Brooklyn
  • Gowanus Open Studios in Brooklyn where the work displayed in his studio was reviewed in Hyperallergic Art Magazine
  • Gristle Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn
  • TIXE Gallery, Chashama Foundation, Manhattan

Several more Brooklyn and Manhattan group shows include the following:

  • Surface/ Landscape Show, BAG Gallery, Brooklyn 2009
  • Night of a Thousand Drawings, Artist’s Space, Manhattan 2008
  • Plus One, BAG Gallery, Brooklyn 2008 with the premise that each artist invited to show chose another artist to also participate; James chose to partner with German artist Dag Przybilla.
  • Rockers and Posers, BAG Gallery, Brooklyn 2008
  • Project Night, Location One, Manhattan 2009

During these years, James was awarded a one-year studio residency with ChaShaMa Arts Foundation in the Tribeca district of lower Manhattan (at 40 Worth Street) which provided a studio space and participation in a group show.

James was also a badge-holding member of the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) at the Javits Center in New York City. The ICFF is an international organization that focuses on all things design. During one session at the Javits, the ICFF curators communicated that Herman’s wall installations, then displayed in photographs at the fair, had content of particular significance for the design aesthetics then current.

James’s work is included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art because of his contributions to the show A Book About Death. This show originated in New York at the Emily Harvey Foundation and was curated by Matthew Rose. The show traveled to 26 cities in the United States and around the world. The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) both acquired copies of the show. (See What James contributed highlighted link).

James as an Artist in Germany

Herman James showed with several galleries in Germany including a one-person show at Galerie ReinerTisch in Friedrichshain in Berlin, for which the artist created a large wall installation, All the Chairs in the Catalog, which was a very large photographically manipulated installation of images of mid- 20th Century modern chairs including the Bibendum chair. The gallery’s large space and high ceilings allowed for an installation 85” high x 110” long. After showing in Paris, this Bibendum Chair Series was taken to Berlin where it was mounted in this exhibition in Friedrichshain for which it was originally created.

In 2002, Galerie Rothamel in Erfurt and Frankfurt am Main invited James to become a represented artist. At Galerie Rothamel, James’s work was exhibited in Dr. Rothamel’s pan-Germany exhibition Neuer Realismus (New Realism).

During this time in Germany, James co-founded Das Bildwörterbuch Projekt. The Bild (picture) Wörter–Buch (dictionary) is an imprint of Duden Verlag. Picture dictionaries, which came into existence during the 1930s and continue in print today, are dictionaries of nouns illustrated with line drawings (e.g., an electron microscope with all its parts individually illustrated). The project used the picture dictionary as a creative “jumping off point” for works of art by non-picture-dictionary artists. The project eventually expanded to include all intellectual properties owned by the German information conglomerate Langenscheidt GmbH, which includes Duden Verlag. The resultant works generated by the project members were, at the invitation of Dr. Florian Langenscheidt, shown at the Bibliographisches Institut located in Mannheim, Germany, and a Division of Langenscheidt GmbH.

James as an Artist in the Portland and Seattle Areas

For several years, Herman James was represented by Quartersaw Gallery, one of the first art galleries in the Pearl District of Portland and named to depict the milling term meaning “at a right angle to the grain.” There, James participated regularly in group shows and was given 3 one-person shows.

During these years, Portland art galleries began holding art openings on the First Thursday of each month. These events were modest at first, but by James’s 3rd one-person show at Quartersaw Gallery in1998, First Thursdays supported 3 arts districts and ran free shuttle buses between each area. The day before his 1998 First Thursday opening, Quartersaw Gallery hosted a preview opening for James that offered a molten chocolate fountain with cookies for dipping, and was attended by 250 people which by local standards for openings was a very good turnout. The next night, First Thursday itself, the artist arrived to find that participating galleries had stopped serving wine because of the size of the crowds, the challenges associated with protecting the work, and the clean-up required afterward.

While represented at Quartersaw Gallery, curators for the Awards in the Visual Arts Fellowship put the artist’s name into nomination for the fellowship for the Northwest region. The artist was a runner-up for the award. This was the year that Andres Serrano, the photographer of Piss-Christ, was an award recipient and because of the controversial content of the Serrano’s work, and of the work in the show in general, the usual museum showing of the awardees work was canceled due to the efforts of North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. Later, the senator advocated abolishing the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a major supporter of the program. Fortunately the NEA exists to this day.

After leaving Quartersaw Gallery, the artist gained representation in Portland with the Laura Russo Gallery, where he was honored with 2 one-person shows, and as at Quartersaw, each of the artist’s one-person shows was reviewed in news outlets of both Portland, and Seattle. Laura Russo, with connections to New York, generously financed the artist’s trips to New York City to have shows, for which James drove trucks full of large paintings and sculptures across the country.

Also in Portland, James was contacted by Terry Hopkins, the senior curator at the prestigious Marylhurst College Art Gym, who invited him to mount a one-person sculpture show in their gallery space. The Art Gym has now been absorbed by the Portland Art Museum. James also showed sculptural pieces at the Portland Center for the Visual Arts (PCVA) alongside artist Jay Backstrand and Christine Bourdette as well as other well-known Northwest artists and the chair of the Arts Department at Mt. Hood Community College also mounted a one-person exhibition of James’s sculptural work.

In Seattle, the artist was awarded a one-person show at the Significant Form Gallery, known for showing sculpture and, later, also known for hosting several important shows of all types of work by women artists.

The artist is currently represented in Portland at Brassworks Gallery, a New Contemporary Art gallery where his work has been included in several well-received group shows. The curator-in-chief and gallerist at Brassworks is Robin Weirich, who has successfully brought together many of the leading creative lights on the New Contemporary Art scene.

James as an Artist in Other National and International Locations

Detroit: During the 2001 grand opening of the Museum of New Art (MONA), Herman James created a major wall installation (11 feet by 22 feet) for the museum’s inaugural exhibition. The artist was invited to participate in this exhibition by curators Jef Bourgeau and Jan van der Marck, co-founders of the museum. Van der Marck had previously founded the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. In the MONA exhibition, James’s work was shown alongside the work of internationally known painter Lucio Pozzi.

Pittsburgh: James was invited to show work at the Three Rivers Arts Festival and created several photomontage and paint pieces depicting his hands, and those of many friends of differing races, all joined together hand in hand. The show was curated by Mary Jane Jacob who had visited the artist’s studio in Portland, Oregon some years before to see his sculptural work.

Grand Rapids: James was invited to show at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (UICA) in Grand Rapids, Michigan where the artist was given an award for excellence for his painting Nuclear Family. This work later went into the collection of Steven Swanson of New York City. Swanson currently holds 32 pieces of the artist’s work.

Los Angeles: James’s work is included in the collection of the LA County Museum as part of The Book About… [Death] Project, an activity of the Emily Harvey Foundation in New York City and curated by international arts writer and curator Matthew Rose. James also showed in L.A. with Ivey Gallery, Hive Gallery, and La Luz de Jesus Gallery.

London: James's work appeared in the international mail-art group show Souvenirs from the Future, curated by Matthew Rose at Temporal Comet.

York: At the Museum of York St. Mary’s, James showed several digital photomontage pieces, including The Arrival, which was short-listed for the Aesthetica Magazine Prize ( link).

Paris: James’s work was included in a large all-France group show under the auspices of Ivy/Meetup featuring New Contemporary Art that was housed in the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière. For this show, James showed a series of mixed media works on paper that were based on images of modernist designer Eileen Gray’s Bibendum Chair, originally created for a 2004 show in Berlin. For the gallery at Le Squat on Rue Rivoli, James showed these same works as he passed through Paris on his way to Berlin. James offers many thanks to Paris-based curator, Matthew Rose, for hosting a party for James and fellow artist Kit Brown at this time.

New Zealand: James showed his collage work with Dale Copeland of Taranaki Arts in an international collage show that toured the islands of New Zealand and the EU. During this tour the show was housed in Atelierhof Gallery in Bremen, Germany and at the Musee Artcolle in Plemet, France.

Collections and Publications

Many of James’s paintings are housed in the Michelson Collection in the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. Leo Michelson was an art collector living in Portland. link.

Private collections in Portland, Seattle, and nationally:

  • Janice Niemi, Washington State Senator (estate)
  • Bill Harris, New York City realtor, Smith Street Miracle
  • Steven Kline, Los Angeles based Television Writer and Restaurateur (estate)
  • William Jamison, Gallerist (estate) with Brad Rogers, Portland Culture Influencer
  • Dr. Peter Leitner, DC and Victoria Frey, Director PICA, ret.
  • Lena Lencek, Prof. Russian Language at Reed College, Arts and Culture Writer
  • Dr. Gideon Bosker, Physician, Arts and Culture Writer
  • Martin Kline, Artist, Art Dealer in the international Secondary Art Market
  • Steven Swanson, Private Investor
  • Jim DeFeo, Restaurateur
  • Leo Michelson, Investor, (estate) Collection housed in Hallie Ford Museum, Salem, OR

Public collections, national and international:

  • The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
  • The Museum of New Art, Detroit
  • Musee Artcolle, Plemet, France
  • The Hallie Ford Museum, Salem, OR
  • The Dishman Gallery, Lamar University, Beaumont, TX
  • International Museum of Collage, Assemblage, and Construction, Cuernavaca, Mexico
  • Langenscheidt KG, Munich, DE
  • Bibliographisches Institut/ Dudenverlag, Mannheim, DE
Recent Shows

The Duck Takes Charge, Grover Gallery, Northwind Art, Port Townsend, WA 2023
Art Now - Group Show, Brassworks Gallery, Portland, OR 2023
Postcard Show, Brassworks Gallery, Portland, OR 2023
12 x 12, Deer Isle Artists Association, Deer Isle, ME 2023
Small Works, Deer Isle Artists Association, Deer Isle ME 2023
Ghost – October Show, Black Meadow Gallery, Randolph, Vermont 2022
Parade, Deer Isle Artists Association Gallery, Deer Isle, ME 2022
12 x 12, Deer Isle Artists Association Gallery, Deer Isle, ME 2022
Reality/Mistaken, Brassworks Gallery, Portland, OR 2022
Souvenirs from the Future, Temporal Comet, London 2021
Toadstools, Gristle Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2021
Urban Aesop, Brassworks Gallery, Portland, OR 2021
Get Back, The Remains Gallery, Hood River, OR 2021
Small Works, Deer Isle Artists Association, Deer Isle, ME 2021
Arcturians, DeLurk Gallery, Winston-Salem, N.C. 2020
Mini Masterpieces, Revolution Gallery, Buffalo, NY 2020
Drawn Out, Revolution Gallery, Buffalo, NY 2020
Mini Masterpieces, Revolution Gallery, Buffalo, NY 2019
Surreal Salon 10, curated by Ron English, Baton Rouge Center for Contemporary Art,
Baton Rouge, LA 2018
Constellations, Gristle Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2018
Sweet Shop, Gristle Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2018
ArisiaCon - Arisia SFA Convention, Best in Show, Boston, MA 2018
Mermaids, La Bodega Gallery, San Diego, CA 2017
New Artists Group, Hive Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2017
The Amoeba and the Duck, One-Person Show, Brookline Art Center, Brookline, MA 2017
The Coaster Show, La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2017
The Arrival, York St. Marys Museum, York, England, UK 2017
Monsters in America – Mythic Creatures in American Folklore, One Mile Gallery, Kingston, NY 2017
Monsters in America – Mythic Creatures in American Folklore, Portland Gallery, Portland, ME 2017
Mini Masterpieces, Revolution Gallery, Buffalo, NY 2017

Recent Reviews and Interviews

Over the years in the Northwest, James has been honored with 26 published reviews in sources from Seattle’s Reflex to Portland’s Oregonian, Willamette Week, Portland Mercury, and San Francisco/Oakland’s Art Review Magazine. Writing for Reflex was David Stairs (link) and Randy Gragg. Writing for the Portland-based papers were Randy Gragg and Renardo Barden.

Below is a link to a 2021 interview James was invited to give to Carpazine in New York City. The magazine, both published and online, covers all things New Contemporary Art, along with cutting edge music and theater arts. The publisher of Carpazine became aware of James’s work via Instagram. This is his second inclusion in their pages: link.

Below is a link to a 2009 review of James’s show The Iceberg Cometh at Dutch Kills Gallery in New York written by Matthew Rose, an international art's writer of note, for Fallon and Rosof’s Art Blog: link.

Below is an article in the online arts and culture magazine Boston Voyager: link.

James was also, interviewed in Sd Voyager (San Diego) however the magazine retains no archive.

Below is a 2013 Hyperallergic article Abstraction Like Fire, a review of James’s work plus five other artists chosen for review from the hundreds of participating artists in Gowanus [Brooklyn] Open Studios. Hyperallergic is the premier online arts criticism site founded by Veken Gueyikian and Hrag Vartanian with John Yau, Senior Editor: link.

James’s work was also reviewed in The Brooklyn Rail, edited by John Yau

James was also a contributing illustrator for Mississippi Mud: link

James also did cover art for the Willamette Week in Portland, Oregon and, more recently, for Hanging Loose Press in New York City.