James Woodside Biography

View James Woodside's available paintings

 

For me, landscape painting is a kind of direct personal "testimony" to the power and excitement of a particular place or natural form. All of the paintings and drawings displayed on this website were done from direct observation and completed on-site.

 

James Woodside, Desert Nest, Oil on Panel, 30" x 40"

 

Working outdoors forces me to have a direct and immediate relationship with the subject matter I'm painting. Working quickly, I try to simplify impossibly complex forms into simple dramatic shapes. I try to distill down what I'm looking at into something I can understand and manage. I consider this immediacy to be crucial to the success and strength of my work. The limitations of time, weather, and transportation of materials all become part of the "genetic makeup" of the painting itself and provide a set of natural parameters. For me, this helps the work maintain a fresh in-the-moment credibility, and a sense of real authenticity.

 

James Woodside, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Oil on Canvas, 30" x 30"

 

A direct response to the "power of the place" is what interests me. By responding to what is around me, without commentary or sentimentality, I'm not attempting to "capture" nature, but rather to just bear witness, to make tangible some of the beauty and power that I have felt in these places.

James Woodside

 

James Woodside, The Clouds of July (Southern Arizona), Oil on Canvas, 48" x 30"

 

Personal:                

• Born: December 3, 1957. 
• 1988-present: Director of Visual Art, Walnut Hill School, Natick, MA

 

Education:

• M.F.A., Hoffberger School of Painting
• Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland
• Whitney Fellowship, Independent Study Program
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
• B.F.A., University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware

 

Selected Showings:

• "New Works" Group Show, Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2019
• "Along the Distanta Mesa: An Homage to Maynard Dixon" Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery, Tucson, AZ, 2019
• "25th Anniversary Celebration" Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery, Tucson, AZ, 2017
• "Art Focus" New England Biolabs, Ipswich, MA, 2015
• TCAN (The Center for the Arts in Natick) 2015
• Transforming: Street Objects from Your Street to Main Street, Brooklyn, NY, 2015
• Wicked 2014 Juried Show, Fountain Street Fine Art, Framingham, MA (Jurors: Hope Turner & Zola Solamente of Arden Gallery, Boston), 2014
• Art in Embassies Program, United States Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam, 2003-05
  
• America, The Ralls Collection, Washington, D.C., 2002
  
• Harmony of Land: Melody of Color, Plymouth State College, Plymouth, NH, 2001
  
• Arts Around Boston Exhibit 2000, Boston, MA, 2000
  
• Creiger-Dane Gallery (at Office Environments of New England), Boston, MA, 2000
  
• Artists Who Teach, Center for the Arts in Natick, Natick, MA, 2000
  
• The Gamble Mansion, Boston, MA, 1996
  
• Eyes on the Earth,  Earthwatch Headquarters, Watertown, MA, 1993
  
• Art Faculty / Invitational Alumni, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 1991
  
• History as Content, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, D.C., 1984              
  

 

Selected Collections:

• National Science Foundation, Office of Polar Programs (Permanent collection at Palmer Station, Antarctica)
• Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA
• Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. LLC, Boston, MA
• Millennia Resources, Needham, MA
• University of Delaware (Permanent Collection)

 

Awards, Visiting Artist, Lecturing, Educational, Publications:

• Western Art Collector, November 2019
• Published in "Maynard Dixon's American West: Along the Distant Mesa" by Mark Sublette, 2018
• Published in Western Art Collector, November 2018
• New American Paintings, No. 92 Northeast Edition, 2011 - Juror: Laura Hoptman, Curator of Painting & Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, NYC
• American Artist Magazine, Painting at the Ends of the Earth, feature article by John A. Parks, February 2007
• Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, Visiting Artist and Lecturer, 2006
• Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China, Guest Instructor, Drawing Classes, 2006
  Teacher/Researcher, "Teaching and Learning in Visual Arts Project", (funded by the J. Getty Trust), Project Zero - Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Co-Principal Investigators: Lois Hetland & Ellen Winner, 2001-04
  
• Olin Fine Arts Center, Washington & Jefferson College, Washington, PA, Visiting Artist and Lecturer, 2004
  
• Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, Visitng Artist and Lecturer, 2004
  
• University of Delaware, Newark, DE, Visiting Artist (graduate painting students) and Lecturer, 2003
  
• New Hampshire Institute of Art, Manchester, NH, Gallery Talk, 2003
  
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.,“Painting in Antarctica”, Science Seminar Series, April 29, 2003, Lecturer, 2003
  
• Grantee, National Science Foundation, Office of Polar Programs: Artists & Writers Program, “To Paint in Antarctica”, (deployed to Palmer Station, Antarctica), 2003
  
• Juror, Scholastic Art Awards, Maine College of Art, Portland, ME, 2003
  
• Lecturer/Panelist, "Connections between Effective Arts Education and Academic Research", April 15, 2002, The Julliard School, NYC, 2002
  
• West Chester University, West Chester, PA, Gallery Talk, 2002
  
• Juror, Biennial 2001, New Hampshire Institute of Art, Manchester, NH, 2001
  
• Lecturer/Panelist, “Transfer or Transformation?” Dec. 6, 2000, Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, 2000
  
• Instructor, Boston Visual School, summer program in Trieste, Italy, 1993
  
• E.E. Ford Excellence in Teaching Award, 1992
• Teaching, Director of Visual Art, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Natick, MA, 1988 to the Present