James Goss, born in 1956 in Bainbridge, Maryland, received his at BFA Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1980. His recent exhibitions include solo exhibitions at Eligere, Seoul, South Korea (2024); The Pit, Los Angeles, CA (2023); WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong (2022); The Pit, Palm Springs, CA (2022); and Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2021). He has also been included in group exhibitions at WOAW Gallery, Singapore (2023); Frieze No. 9 Cork Street with The Pit, London, UK (2022); and Harper’s, East Hamptons, NY (2021). His work can be found in numerous private collections in the US and abroad.

Goss has painted landscapes since 1973. The second of eight children and the son of an Officer in the Marines, Goss moved to Hudson Falls, New York at the age of 12. It was here that Goss developed a long, deep fascination with nature. Of his long-time home in the high Adirondacks, from which much of his life’s work stems, Goss says, “The wonder of nature is endless. I’m here by design, not by accident.” He spent some time in New York City as the former co-Director of White Columns from 1981-82. In 1983, he returned to the Adirondacks to live and work. Goss considers taking his boat out on the lake and tending to his home garden as part of his artistic practice. Only once he’s spent enough time outdoors watching and absorbing do the images, emotions, and colors appear to him, ready to be transposed in paint. Rather than trying to faithfully capture each petal within one of his zinnias or blades of grass in the surrounding meadows, Goss paints the experience of close looking, not the close looking itself. The supersaturated color palette is largely responsible for the work’s surrealist qualities. Mixing his own hues, Goss prioritizes vibrancy and intensity above all else, hoping to reproduce the naturally occurring luminosity he witnesses daily. Though he avoids entirely monochromatic schemas, a single hue often dominates each landscape, not unlike the way sunlight envelops and transforms everything it touches.