James Tucker

James Tucker (b. 1959, California) was educated in Virginia, and currently works as an artist near Boston, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He was trained as a sociologist, having received a PhD at the University of Virginia in 1992 and taught for almost thirty years (1991-2019) at the University of New Hampshire. As a sociologist, he spent much of his time studying people on the margins of society, including those who struggle with themselves and the world around them. He was always stuck by how facial expressions reflected internal and external struggles but found that neither words nor photographs fully captured such struggles. Painting, he discovered, allows him to explore the human face and its complex expressions in a deeper and often abstract way as he experiments with various compositions, colors, and textures.

James’ work was featured in ‘Critical Mass,’ on view August 12-27, 2023.

“With ‘Ascension,’ I used brush and drip painting styles (acrylic) to create an abstract portrait of an unknown person who is seeking refuge from a chaotic world.”

James Tucker