James Sparks – Artist

I am a visual artist working primarily with oil painting on canvas or linen.

For many years now my subject matter has been centered on the theme of complexity and diversity as found in nature especially when the scale is manipulated and enlarged.  This theme, where movement, space and form interact, presents itself in my paintings of stadium crowds at sporting events as well as in more recent paintings of dried leaves accumulating in a corner of my porch or that congregate along the pathways that meander in the wooded area behind my studio.

What invigorates me as an artist is achieving that revelation when patterns, textures and imagery cohere into a unified pattern that redefines the subject matter.  With the stadium series, the geometry of the architecture (seats, enclosures, etc.) provided a repetition of patterns in contrast to the mayhem of the crowd. In the study of decaying leaf forms the parallel floor boards provide order to the random fallen leaves. If successful, the commonality of the imagery is experienced in a more formal, abstract context.