Painting can be so many things: it can be applying paint to a surface, but it also can be drawing with pencil on that same surface. It can be scratching the wood with a knife, or it can be simply looking and anticipating your next brush stroke. I feel that there are no limits in painting, and I simply try to bring the enthusiasm I feel for the medium to the person looking at the finished work. I am always expanding my visual language so that I can better communicate my ideas, and tell a story that will affect people in a wholly positive way.

I travel extensively and I always paint while I am gone. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that I have brought along with me a support and some brushes. When I see a full moon, read a book of maritime lore, or interact with the wonderful people that I meet on the road I am painting.
This may seem that wherever I happen to be I’m distracted and my mind is not focused. But the exact opposite is true: when I say I am painting, I am deeply focused on something, trying to see what it is that attracts me to it and how I can best convey the feelings I have to the rest of the world.

Why do lonely hills, crescent moons and our very planet preoccupy me so much? It is because things like these all provide rich thematic territory and are relative to my favorite literature and life experiences. When these things are viewed together I tend to find a cohesive narrative that is as exiting as words on a page or notes of music. It is when I make these connections that I seem to find myself a custodian of stories and information that may have been lost, forgotten or gone unseen. So I actively use them in my work as an act of preservation, so others may discover the same things for themselves.
Finally I believe that painting should convey a sense of wonder to the viewer. It should open up their heart and mind to the possibilities that both the physical world and the imagination present. It is only through the marriage of the acutely observed and the completely constructed that I feel I tell the best story.

James was born in 1983 near Rochester New York, one day before the fourth of July. So for many years as a child he thought all the fireworks on his birthday where for him. He was named James Stewart Barney after actor Jimmy Stewart, who was famous for movies like “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and a person James still looks up to today. As a child he grew up in the small town of Hemlock, New York near the Finger Lakes region. Here he attended the local school system, played baseball, and discovered his love of art. After high school, he applied to several schools before heading to Keystone College, and in his freshman year he won the Keystone College Division of Fine Arts Outstanding Student Award. The next year James graduated “cum laude,” with an associate’s in fine arts, and also received the honor of being named the Scotty Neuroth Memorial Scholar, by the fine arts division. Immediately he went back to Keystone to get his bachelors degree, and develop his paintings. Thought out that time he developed an interest in the practice of transpersonal art which arises from looking within for the symbols, colors and shapes to utilize in compositions. With the support of great teachers and artists like Judith Keats, Drake Gomez, Cliff Prokop and Sally Tostie, James graduated from Keystone in 2006, with the honor of being names Outstanding Traditional Baccalaureate Graduate. He now lives and works in Shohola PA full time, all the while letting his paintings evolve into ever increasingly challenging and evocative works.