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Born in 1962, Jim cannot remember a time
when he wasn't creating some type of art.
Television provided him with his earliest
models to work from in the form of
cartoons.He moved on to comics,graphic
novels and the like. It wasn't until his first
year of Bristol Community College,also in
Fall River,that he discovered his affinity for
painting while studying under artist Marion
Wilner. He went on to study at The Swain
School of Design in New Bedford,Ma.under
the likes of David Loefler Smith, Severin
Haines and Benjamin Martinez. Since
college he has had numerous shows,both
solo and group,has done illustrations for a
number of magazines and newspapers,won
many awards,and is currently scheduled to
have his work exhibited at Infusion
Gallery,Los Angeles,Ca.as well as online at
the VirtualTart Gallery. While he took to
painting as obsessively as cartooning,he
never gave up on cartooning as such. His
cartoons have appeared in numerous
publications,both mainstream and
underground.He has also worked as an
editorial cartoonist for the Fall River Herald
News and had some of his work featured in
King Feature's Syndicated 'New Breed'.
Ultimately this led him in the direction of the
tattoo world where he worked professionally
for five years and won awards for his work.
Never having given up his desire for either
cartooning nor painting he has struggled to
reconcile the two artforms for decades. With
the advent of some serous health issues he
left the 60 hour a week life of a tattoo artist
and has since tried to take his early
retirement/disability as a blessing in
disguise. Not willing to stop working on his
art,he has used his time to continue to piece
together the various parts of his artistic self.
He is currently exploring more of a mixed
media approach to what he does and,as
such,has begun to create what some are
calling 'animated expressive abstraction'.
www.riverratspress.com
riverratspress@verizon.net