Spotlight Artist

James Gortner

Northeast
Artist profile photo
Featured in New American Paintings

Artist Statement

In this body of work, I use reclaimed industrial paint to set, dry, and reverse found paint from an existing surface onto stretched linen. I employed this technique when I was recently forced to leave my studio. I decided to take the space with me. I reversed onto my canvas the topmost drywall, flooring paint, and wood surfaces, which included my own spilled paint marks, footprints, loose brush bristles, staples, bits of cut canvases, dust, overspray, and trace gouges in the floor and walls where earlier I had knifed through paintings. In doing this, I preserve a history of my artistic enterprise in the space, but also rip away the remnants of my efforts. The gesture and the resulting art could be seen as at once defiant and redemptive, destructive and transformative.

Discover more artists from the Northeast

THE MAGAZINE

Explore our magazine to discover exceptional artists

Open magazine with text, modern illustrations, and a list of artists on a pink background.
View issues

Call for Artists

Submit your work for consideration

New American Paintings is a juried exhibition-in-print and digital, presenting the work of 40 emerging artists in each issue.

View competitions

Your gateway to new art

Discover tomorrow's art stars, today

Two books on a wooden table with a modern decorative sculpture in the background.

PRINT + EARLY ACCESS DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION

$179/YEAR

DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION

$99/YEAR OR $10/MONTH

Each issue of New American Paintings features forty artists selected through our juried competitions—presented in a beautifully curated, full-color publication. Subscribers receive six issues per year, plus exclusive online access to current and past editions. Are you a collector? Consider our premium subscription and receive our museum-quality printed publication + access to each new digital issue two weeks before its general release.