of Painting and Sculpture at the Salmagundi Club in New York City, the annual Hoosier Salon( including“ Best Traditional Painting in any Medium” in 1997) and Indiana Heritage Arts, where he received three merit awards in an early 2000s exhibition.
Tracy is equally at home with oils, woodblock and linocut printmaking, and illustration using a combination of hand-rendering and technology. His mastery of accurate drawing skills, particularly wildlife, sets him apart from many landscape artists. For his latest work he’ s been experimenting with a laser engraver as well as large format serigraphs, or silkscreens, on heavy paper.
The latter process involves several steps and requires an assistant when handling sizeable prints. Tracy’ s recent pieces use stylized images of ravens and owls, sometimes repeated, in flat bright colors with contrasting backgrounds. Resulting artwork is bold and contemporary.
“ I still love painting,” he said,“ but I want them to be more unique, my own voice.” Unlike the neoimpressionistic style popular with current plein air( on location) artists, Tracy tends to apply many thin layers of paint to create his desired effect. His landscapes, which he calls“ Rural Americana,” often include closely rendered farmhouses and outbuildings using nuanced lighting. Conveying the
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“ Approaching Storm,” oil on panel.
Indiana becomes tedious, he often returns to the visual relief of big skies and desert mesas near Taos.“ As soon as summer comes, I want to be in New Mexico,” he remarked.“ These guys out west doing cowboy realist art are doing phenomenal work— they are killer landscape painters.”
As a professional fine artist for more than three decades, James Tracy has won accolades and awards from juried exhibits including the National Exhibition
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