Take a look at a forest, a city, historical garment. What do you see? I see intention, design, color, and layers – so many layers. To me it is beautiful. I love nature, I love color, I love design, I love texture and my inspiration comes from all these wild places. I am a non- objective / abstract painter / muralist interested in the creative process, chaos, and finding order within the chaos. I receive inspiration from nature, my culture (Northern Cheyenne Tribe and Northern European ancestry), emotions, and the world around me. I love the challenge of manipulating medium, (oil, acrylic, and spray paint using nonconventional tools and techniques) to tell my story. This process of creating allows my mind to imagine. For me each piece starts with a vision, location, or concept, and I create from there.
The first recollection of my journey as an artist was in kindergarten when we were allowed to finger paint. I loved it and ended up painting with my knuckles because I loved the design it made when I went in a circle which created a pattern resembling the flower my mom grew in her garden.
Since then I experimented with crayons and makers on living room walls, spray paint on the side of the house, pencil, acrylic, charcoal, and finally pastels and oil paints.
I love taking observations, experiences, and feelings and communicating them through art. I find in my own life, art, has always come to me with emotion. Desperation, exhilaration, sorrow, longing, redemption, love, and loss are a few of the common feelings that fuel my creative spirit.
For me art my art is to be experienced. There is the experience of imagining, daring, creating, following tangents, and creating again. It is my hope that the final pieces allow the viewer’s imagination to wander through my experience, their experiences, and settle in the space of contemplation and connection. So much of the human experience is unique but at the same time so much of it is to be shared.
james.temte@gmail.com