“Barsness Art at Catharine Clark,” San Francisco Chronicle
Former Bay Area resident James Barsness presents big paintings at Catharine Clark embodying a personal take on mythologies that at some level may have ruled the world.
Press & Media
“James Barsness at George Adams”, Art in America
Though less collaged than his previous work, the eight paintings that made up James Barsness’s recent exhibition are still dense with obscure imagery and obsessive detail. Loaded with cryptic symbolism, they offer private narratives steeped in archetypal themes: birth, childhood and death, sex and violence.
“As Clear As White and Black”, The Times-Picayune
Barsness’ works look like antique Hindu scrolls, with elephant gods, celestial turtles, intricate mandalas and endless decorative patterns. But straight pseudo-religious iconography they’re not.
“James Barsness: Beastly Beatitudes”, Gambit Weekly
Before TV and computers, we had animals. Domestic beasts aside, animals represented the world beyond the village gate; horses and camels plied the trade routes connecting Europe to Asia, while migrating birds dotted the skies like omens from elsewhere.
“James Barsness at George Adams”, Art in America
For close to 10 years now, James Barsness has been making a name for himself as a creator of highly detailed, unusually complex and often frankly sexual art. His often tongue-in-cheek portrayals of physical appetite, merged with a masterful appreciation of materials, which here included ballpoint pen and acrylic on paper collaged onto canvas, make him an artist of accomplished idiosyncrasy.
“James Barsness: Mill Valley”, ARTnews
In the last ten years Jim Barsness has moved from the West Coast to the East Coast and back again. Nothing in his work seems to correspond obviously with these changes.
“James Barsness”, The San Francisco Examiner
At the Susan Cummins Gallery, L.A. based artist Jim Barsness deals with the collapse of empires ancient and modern and the vanity of human wishes.