Today we’d like to introduce you to Jim Ellsberry
Hi Jim, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’ve been a representational landscape painter for 40 years. I studied at the Scottsdale Artists’ School in the 1990s while working in Phoenix, and attended a number of workshops in the following years with noted painters from California to New York. Although my foundation is representation, I’ve always had an interest in abstraction as well. My work today combines both of these approaches to painting.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As with most creative pursuits, painting for me has been about craft and experimentation. By craft, I mean learning… the long road of skill development and understanding of process: the tools, medium of choice, design and paint handling. Experimentation is also part of the process, and has become more important to me as I develop as a painter. To the question of a smooth road… for me the road has been always changing.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My work revolves around a connection to nature. I paint both “en plein air” and in the studio. However it’s the outdoors – the natural world – that most informs my work. Even when I create what might be called a non-objective painting (abstraction), the result seems to have elements of, or references to, nature.
The big question for every creative is “What sets you apart?” I think with years of work behind them, an artist naturally begins to have a certain signature look about their work. All painters handle the elements of painting differently, depending on their life experience and personality traits. Color, mark, edge-handling, paint manipulation… they all are truly an individual choice, the things that sets one painter apart from another, if only in subtle ways.
What matters most to you?
What has always mattered most to me is simply “doing good work.” In previous lives, I’ve worked as an advertising copywriter, a computer programmer, and a designer and builder of acoustic guitars (archtop guitars). I’ve always found great satisfaction from believing I have done my best, be it writing, coding, or forming the soundplate of a stringed instrument. With painting I strive to reflect those foundational principles of good work that have informed visual imagery for centuries: composition, shape, line, the use of color, surface facture, etc. All of the pieces of the painting puzzle need to come together for me. And hopefully in a way that speaks to what I’m feeling about the work.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jimEllsberry.com
- Instagram: @ellsberryart
- Facebook: EllsberryArt
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