Tracy, James

I was born in the art colony of Nashville, Indiana in nineteen fifty. Exposed to the art of the early Brown County masters and contemporary artists living there at that time I knew from an early age Art was my calling. I visited the Brown County Art Guild often when I was a boy marveling at what seemed like magical artwork there. At eight years of age I began my formal training with the landscape painter Kaye Pool in her loft studio in the old Village Green Building in Nashville.

Attending high school in Columbus, Indiana I found a sophisticated and advanced Art department headed by the surrealist painter and Art educator Karl McCan. He was instrumental in opening my mind to genres of art beyond landscape painting, my first real mentor. I won several regional and national awards in the Scholastic Magazine Art Competitions while a student there and was an intern in the Design department at the world headquarters of Cummins Engine Company.

I later attended Indiana University and the University of New Mexico. While at Indiana University I worked as a Graphic Designer and Illustrator for the Radio and Television Center creating on-air and print graphics and set designs for PBS affiliate WTIU, NPR affiliate WFIU, and the School of Telecommunications.

In the early nineties I worked in Hollywood, California as part of a team painting large scale backdrop paintings for the film industry, and as an Illustrator for the world's largest decorated apparel company.

Afterwards I returned to Brown County, where I've been creating paintings and prints of Southern Indiana and Northern New Mexico scenes, and portraits, for the past 30 years.