Spotlight
Mixed media collage on board
29 x 17 inches
2014
As exhibited in:
Elevation from Within: The Study of Art at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 2019–2024, TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 2019; Richardson Family Art Museum, Wofford College, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 2021; Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, 2022, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, Florida, 2023, Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, 2024
Hailing from a family of Southern artists, James Denmark learned at an early age to appreciate color and form. Denmark was raised in deeply segregated Winter Haven, Florida. Although his elementary school lacked an art teacher and necessary supplies, Denmark built comradery with fellow founding members of the school’s art club. As he progressed through middle school, he trained himself by copying characters from well-known comic books, but later switched to drawing birds and carving small sculptures from lye soap.
An award-winning track and field athlete in high school, Denmark was accepted to Florida Agriculture and Mechanical University in Tallahassee on a sports scholarship and obtained his BFA degree. While there, he studied with the esteemed artist and art historian Samella Lewis, who instilled in him a deep appreciation for African American artists. After graduating in 1960, Denmark remained in Florida for three years and then relocated to Brooklyn where he taught studio art in the public school system.
Denmark was already an established artist—working predominantly in watercolors and charcoal—when he enrolled at the Pratt Institute of Fine Arts in New York in 1973 and his work underwent a drastic stylistic change. As part of his studies towards a master's degree, he sought inspiration from some of the twentieth century’s most renowned artists, including Willem de Kooning, Norman Lewis, Jackson Pollock, and Jacob Lawrence, whose colorful style and dynamic collages had the most profound effect on Denmark’s practice. He is now best known for his collages, which incorporate hand-colored paper, objects, and fabric. As one gallerist noted, James Denmark’s “work reveals a deep commitment to restoring us to our dignity as human beings and as a race.”