Collection: Jim Buckels Artist Biography and Art Gallery Collection

Among the generation of American artists now in their sixties, Iowa born painter and print maker Jim Buckels is a delightful anomaly: an artist more driven by his inner visions than by fashions and trends, while maintaining an innate sophistication that places his work prominently within the post-modern mainstream. In fact, he is a Neo-Surrealist of a peculiarly American Breed: a creator of dream-like images, rendered in a meticulous, modern airbrush technique with crystalline clarity. In his lithographs and serigraphs, as well as in his acrylic paintings, Buckels paints a seamless realm of fantasy that has won him a major reputation in a remarkably short span of time. Jim Buckels' fascination with fantasy began in early childhood, when his mother, a professor of English composition and literature at Iowa State University, would read to him from storybooks illustrated by N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, and Howard Pyle. His artistic talent would later win him a scholarship to the University of Northern Iowa. His adventurous spirit compelled him to interrupt his studies during his sophomore year, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army for a three-year stint that would include a tour of Vietnam. Returning to civilian life and his studies at UNI in 1971, Jim Buckels earned a bachelor's degree in art and began his career as a freelance illustrator.

Jim Buckels would become known for his stylized landscapes, inspired by such regional artists as Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton, as well as by the primitive dreamscapes of the great French painter, Henri Rousseau. These unique influences are reflected in the acrylic paintings, lithographs, and serigraphs for which he is now best known. The visionary vistas and fantastic architectural details offer the viewer a restful respite from reality. These paintings and prints provide a magical refuge for the viewer, a return trip ticket to the storybook realm of childhood reverie. As one New York art critic recently noted, Jim Buckels works "tell stories that linger in memory long after one has viewed them, hinting at truths that lie just below the surface of the seen world". For this reason as well as for his outstanding technical skills, he has emerged as a contemporary master whose work will continue to enthrall us for many years to come. Jim Buckels has earned international acclaim for his paintings, lithographs, and serigraph, particularly the beauty he portrays in a combination of the otherworldly and reality.

Jim Buckels creates architectural landscapes that lend the viewer a sense of déjà vu, as he explains, “Most of my paintings are real places [but] … you can always make it better.” He depicts real-world locations and adjusts reality to improve the scene, thinking, “what if that building were on the other side of the Mediterranean, or on the other side of the street where the light is better?” Buckels careful attention to detail, not often seen in the realm of Neo-Surrealism is the crux of what he calls his Metaphysical Landscapes. It is this that sets his work apart. Buckels has had one-man shows in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and many other major cities. His paintings and prints are collected across the United States and abroad.