Biography

David Alan James was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and raised in St. Louis, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. After receiving his BFA in Ceramics at Northwest Missouri State University he earned an MFA in Painting with High Honors from the University of Arizona. He subsequently became Foundations Studio Coordinator at the University of Montana in Missoula, establishing that program and reinstating the BFA Exhibition for undergraduate students that continues to this day. He later became the Head of the Painting Area, having developed a popular course in the practice and development of abstract painting. In 2009 after 25 years of teaching, research, and service to the University he retired. His academic writing has been published in nationally refereed art journals, and he has served as panel chair and been a featured speaker at the F.A.T.E: Foundations in Art, Theory and Practice, Biennial National Conferences. Student work from his classes appear in the textbook, DRAWIING: Space, Form, Expression by Wayne Enstice and Melody Peters.

David's paintings have been widely exhibited. They have been featured in solo exhibitions, and won awards in juried, invitational and group shows, at a variety of commercial and university galleries and museums, and public art museums; regionally, nationally, and internationally.  His work has been purchased for numerous private and public collections and his paintings reside in the permanent collections of The University of Montana Museum of Art and the Missoula Art Museum.

Recent Work

David Alan James has always been interested in and inspired by nature.

His recent paintings refer to the sometimes indiscriminate intersection of human activity and the resulting "footprint", in contrast to the elegance of nature. Allusion to oil and water, erosion, weather related catastrophes, contemplative beauty, corrosive events, raging skies, damage to riparian corridors, the resultant effects on species, and our collective hubris are some of his topics. Through specific and complex layers of a variety of media the work often reflects most literally how our attempts at ordering and restructuring natural topography to control and reshape our surroundings can meet with success and order, or with unintended consequences. These ideas and references to the phenomena of natural and affected surfaces can be easily seen upon a careful examination of the patina, color, texture and depth of his paintings.