571 Projects is pleased to announce stories change, an exhibition of eight recent paintings by Jimmie James, opening December 11, 2025 at 56 Park Street, Stowe Vermont. Made during an extended period of living and working in Berlin, Germany, James' expressive abstract paintings in acrylic on canvas and acrylic and pencil on watercolor paper reflect emotional landscapes that unite us in our shared vulnerability and joy of being human. This is the artist's third exhibition with gallery, and the gallery will host an opening reception with the artist on Thursday, December 11, 5 - 7p.
An accomplished colorist, James' sensitive palette and composition extends an invitation to slow down, beckoning the viewer towards closer consideration of the artist's mark making journey. In balance (2023, acrylic on canvas, 60h x 40w in.), colliding color and form create dynamic abstract planes that compel the viewer to pause, inviting immersion in a kind of unexpected beauty. Geometric shapes pop on a stark white ground while abstracted forms create almost architectural spaces. In this body of work, the familiar and the foreign cohabit compositionally in much the same way that accessing remembered people, places or things warp through this act of remembering. The past becomes at once strange and familiar: these things happened, but the details are distorted by the passage of time. On these planar, painted surfaces, the brush dances, creating colorful arcs and arabesques, vibrant geometric shapes that push into space as the ground recedes. Neutral tones in the lower part of the picture place hold aloft the dense compositions in stories change (2022, acrylic on canvas, 23.6h x 31.5w in.) giving visual space to consider the artist's gestures. While James' choice of hue veers between bold oranges and reds to soft neutrals of pinks and yellows animated by dashes of bright, intense blues, the overwhelming sense these paintings dispel is one of generosity: an insistent sweetness and poetry. James' titles open the possibility of many narratives and forefront his love of storytelling. Even in cacophony we find harmony in a candy-colored kaleidoscope. Long a student of Jungian theory, James states, "What I'm interested in developing [in my work] is less of my ego and more and of bigger, more collective consciousness (…) I enjoy painting with another source." In letting go of the ego, and in intentionally working to open himself to that which psychologist Carl Jung termed the Collective Unconscious, the artist becomes a vector for actions which coalesce into universally compelling images.
Consistently exhibiting a strong sense of emotional integrity and truth through spontaneous, organic line work and perceptive use of color, James' are works made to be lived with, continually grounding us in the act of looking and appreciating. At once majestic, bold, playful, real, and profoundly human, a keen sense of dimensionality exists within: in the physical sense of an implied structured space, but also, and perhaps more intriguingly, by traveling into the frailty and vulnerability of our shared humanity, the work flexes into the spiritual realm.
Now living and making work in the creatively energetic Redhook neighborhood of Brooklyn, James' paintings and mixed media works offer both catharsis and celebration. A poet, painter, actor and singer/songwriter, this Brooklyn born, this renaissanced artist has long been a fixture of New York City's art, theater and music scene, showing at a number of galleries including 571 Projects, Andrea Schwartz Gallery, Boltax Gallery, and Thomas Werner Gallery, to name a few. He has performed in works by theatrical luminaries including Richard Maxwell, Christina Masciotti, Danny Hoch, and Susan Lori Parks, and has composed for theater and film, where projects include Seth Zvi Rosenfeld's "Everything's Turning into Beautiful," Amos Poe's "Empire II." Jimmie James' works are present in many private collections and corporate collections, including the W Hotel Times Square, New York, and New York Law School. His paintings have been used for many record covers with Verve Music Group.
