Jim Kamprath

Artist Statement

  I create art from a longing within myself to have others visualize and share my vision and to share what I see and how I see it. This usually involves deconstructed images, or fragments I have gathered into my consciemce memory from other sights and visions, abstracted and re-combined into these images. These are personal visualizations of my perception.

   Agter all, art represents a private personal viewing of objects and images real or imagined. This makes up our visual environment. 

   I try to take these visions and represent them in my creations with as much personal clarity as possible. God, it would seem, has entrusted me with a vision of what is, not what could be or should be but what is, before my mind's eyes. A glimmer of truth, as represented by God to us his humble servants. 

   I do not take and use these broken fragments: fractals as part of my personal interpretation of that environmental abstraction, nor do I necessarily re-use object that are visually recognizable to any but my personal vision. I like to think that these multiple layers of images when combined will all add up to a magnificent new whole. Abstraction is a part of all we see and perceive. Everything becomes abstracted as we step back and  as we study a portion of the environ. It will become out of focus and altered in our personal view and perception. So as we move to and fro the venue alters in our perception. 

   In my Artist statement for my thesis I talked about how I had to sway back and forth to get into the mood to put paint down on a surface as I started my  creative process. I now feel that these mere movements back and forth or to and fro will alter the view and thus my perception. So I have a constantly changing perception and I start where ever I am, in that vision. 

   I use acrylic, watercolor and collage  to help me piece together the reconstructed landscape fragments I see. Collage is a piecing together, to bring back into view, the pieces of my perceptions. I use watercolor to help draw together these pieces by linking them with opaque or transparent colors also fragmentary and combined in many layers. I also use Ink to high light and enliven. My use of acrylic then becomes a vehicle of combination for all of these media, a matrix combined in polymer, mixed together and combined as a single means of expression.

James Kamprath 2009