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James Griffin, contemporary artist

James Griffin (Born in 1949) is an American contemporary artist living in the USA. For over 40 years, James Griffin's illustrations have graced the covers of books around the world, ranging from Romance to Mysteries and Young Adult to Modern Fiction. His work has helped sell millions of books.

James was a child of the international world, growing up in Canada, United States, Peru, Brazil and England. His years in London in particular were very influential on his art, being exposed to the great span of art history up to the emergence of pop art of the 1960s. He absorbed a fusion of cultures from the Beatles and Carnaby Street, to the high Andes to Tropical Brazil, to Norman Rockwell’s apple pie America, the Beach Boys, the Hippie years of peace and protest.

He was an artist from a very young age and when he found out there was such a thing as a professional artist, he turned his passion to it and never looked back. He poured over Saturday Evening Post covers, Sears Roebuck catalogs, comic books, Gustave Dore’s engravings for the Divine Comedy and any art book he could find. It was in London where he really came face to face with great art in person. And not just the classics. London was teeming with new artistic ideas. For instance, the first Pop Art exhibition was held there in the early 1960s.

Throughout his  life, James has straddled different worlds and cultures, America and the rest of the world, the classics and the modern pop culture, abstract and realistic art.

All these varied influences come through in his paintings. He works primarily with realism, but always with a consciousness of the abstract just beneath the surface. Even the psychedelic experiences he had in the early 1970s show up in his brushwork, which can dance into flights of fantasy. As an artist, he is truly the product of the world he experiences.

His current work includes Florida subjects, done with bold light and color, parrots in lush tropical settings, water, sunlit streets and bursts of light blasting through Spanish moss. He also focuses on the land and rocky seascapes of Maine, where he summers. The vibrant energy of New York is another recurring interest and he has created a different vocabulary to express visual music of the city.

His paintings are emotional. All the years as an illustrator have taught James to communicate clearly and powerfully in visual terms. On the bookshelves, a cover has to immediately grab the viewer. It can have layers of subtlety and complexity, but first has to get noticed. This concept shows up in James Griffin’s paintings, which catch the viewer’s attention, but then have lasting interest as they are viewed again and again. His work can be seen on his website, www.Jamesgriffinstudio.com.

https://www.jamesgriffinillustration.com