Jim Bergesen spent his formative years in Belgium, Holland and Switzerland before returning to his native Michigan. He’s made his artistic home in New York City since the early eighties.
Jim finds inspiration in that which is noticed or perceived just outside the frame or focus: movement, reflections, light, and the ever-present architecture of the city and its setting at the mouth of a great river. His guiding passions of painting, drawing and photography have helped shape his art, which creates a synthesis between these mediums in both traditional and digital forms. By re-focusing and re-framing images, and through the use of color in both real and pixelated practices, he filters the static of the everyday and strives to reveal the unseen nature and spirit within the image.
Jim’s work inhabits a space where the representational is abstracted and abstraction is moved toward representation. Impassioned by the lucidity of form found in indigenous artwork from Oceania and West Africa, he’s become a keen collector.
A Life Member of the Art Students League of New York, Jim has an MFA in Studio Art and an MA in Contemporary Art History and Criticism from SUNY Purchase College.
In addition to his creative practice, Jim loves to share his passion for the history and uses of art materials through teaching and conducting workshops at art schools and universities in the greater NYC area.
Jim’s paintings and drawings have been acquired for several corporate and private collections.