Biography
James Gilroy says his work begins as an idea brought into focus by pausing to listen, picking up the brush and then within the pause, letting it tell him what to do. His images are made to be broken, enhanced and changed. Born in New York City in 1948, Gilroy’s formal training began at The New York Phoenix School of Design and continued for more than a decade at Art Students League of New York. The understanding of anatomy was paramount in his education as an artist and a skill he exercises to this day.
Gilroy believes it takes years of active pursuit to build up the personal muscle to paint what is private but compels to be revealed and spoken. His work is layered with many colors that transmute and blend together as an alchemy of color where he trusts the rhythm will influence the viewer’s eye to travel and be enticed. The substance of light combined with the colors help him break the image into something truer. In Gilroy’s words, “It is vital to me to have my work express a thingness, a movement perhaps even into something that sings.”