Artist's Statement

I tend to think of Artists as people who organize and manipulate visual symbols for the purpose of communication. This deliberate (not random) juxtaposition of disseparate symbols creates new and hopefully interesting composite meanings. The challenge facing the artist is to organize symbols and their attendant associational values in a coherent fashion so that a sympathetic viewer can grasp their meaning.

Art made in this fashion is content driven and takes into account the sympathetic viewer’s likely reaction to its organization. Form is subject to the intentionality of the artist and no longer is simply end in itself.

I find this approach very liberating in that I am free to choose whatever form I find most appropriate to the idea of the piece. The application of this approach over the last twenty years has resulted in a visually diverse body of work that runs the gamut from figuration to abstraction to assemblage. What unifies this body of work is not its superficial look but rather a concern with content that sees each piece as a physical manifestation of either a social relationship or personal state of mind.

James H. Calvin