James Ulmer
James Ulmer draws inspiration from contrasting sources - from graphic novels, children’s toys, and commercial illustration, to Western art history, he joins a continuum of artists for whom painting is an exercise mediated through visualities reaching far beyond its legacy. Indeed, his works evoke something akin to the frames of a comic strip, each revealing a small, self-contained narrative populated with brightly colored, one-dimensional humans in everyday scenes, jogging in the park, sitting by the dinner table, or gazing out the window. Devoid of facial expression and hovering amidst flat, graphical blocks of color, Ulmer’s subjects are purposefully generic – they seem to exist somewhere between the easy legibility of a road sign and the stylized, cultic symbolism of ancient art. Figurative painting’s historical purpose of chronicling quotidian life still rings true for the artist, yet straddling the middle ground between the immediately decipherable and the highly enigmatic allows him to complicate perception and introduce a surreal and unsettling undercurrent.
Born 1981 in Philadelphia, USA
Lives and works in Brooklyn, USA
EDUCATION
University of the Arts, Philadelphia, BFA in Illustration and Design
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022
How's Your Spirit?, Eighteen, Copenhagen, Denmark
James Ulmer: Outside, Inside, The Pit, Los Angeles, US
2021
Painting Pictures, The Hole, New York, US
Laid Back, Marvin Gardens, Ridgewood, New York, US
12, PM/AM, London, UK
2019
JJ, Amala Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2018
Color & Shape, Leftfield Gallery, San Luis Obispo, California, US
Play Orbit, Marvin Gardens, Ridgewood, New York, US
2014
Razzle Dazzle, Snyderman Works Gallery, Philadelphia, US
2013
Drawings, Beginnings Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, US
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022
V1 XX - Twenty years of V1 Gallery, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
Interior Dialogues, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2021
Horses?, Chart Gallery, New York, US
Wild Frontiers, The Pit Gallery, Los Angeles, US
10, PM/AM, London, UK
Nature Morte, The Hole, US
Lampadephoria, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
2020
MINE IV, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
Good Pictures, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, New York, US
Extra Time, Plus One Gallery, Antwerpen, Belgium
2019
MINE III, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
Pack Den Badeanzug Ein, Galerie Kornfeld, Berlin, Germany
Peanuts, Eighteen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Malmo Sessions, Carl Kostyal Gallery, Malmo, Sweden
2016
A Being in The World, Salon 94, NY, US
2015
She Sells Seashells By The Seashore, Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, New York, US
The Coyote, Steinsland Berliner Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
2014
Tip Top, Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, US
2012
Its a Small Small World, Family Business, New York, US
SELECTED ART FAIRS
2018
Untitled Art Fair, Marvin Gardens, Miami, Florida, US
2015
Untitled Art Fair, Eric Firestone Gallery, Miami, Florida, US
Art on Paper, Eric Firestone Gallery, New York, New York, US
2014
Untitled Art Fair, Eric Firestone Gallery, Miami, Florida, US
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