BIO Jim Pittman was born and raised in the Tidewater region of Virginia. He holds a B.A. in Art History from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. An art educator for many years, he founded the art departments for Tidewater Academy and Surry County High School. To further his own practice, Pittman has studied throughout Italy and Spain. A traditional watercolorist for many years, a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon inspired him to broaden his use of color and texture. As a result, his work increasingly became more minimalistic in nature, utilizing bold mediums focused on the organic colors of the American Southwest. Pittman is represented in many private and corporate collections in the United States, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore and Germany. The Denver Art Museum acquired one of his Canyon Series paintings for their permanent collection of Contemporary Art. Jim maintains studios in Boulder, Colorado and Sandbridge, Virginia. Artist Statement "My work is landscape reduced to a grid-like compositional structure. I use a vibrant color palette, painterly texture, and a luminous sense of light. There is no preplanning or drawing. Paint is applied with a knife and mixed on the canvas intuitively in many layers. Perspective is reduced to simple lines either drawn or scratched into the surface. I try to take the landscape and essentialize it in an interesting and meaningful way. My work is not site-specific but I do relate to colors and conditions. I paint my remembered impressions and attempt to create the mystery of ancient places and the passage of time, weather, and man. Edges, texture, and surface are important elements of my work which I strive to be spontaneous, luminous, and deep."