Polish Canadian artist James Verbicky was born in 1973 and lived the majority of his early life in British Columbia before immigrating to the United States in the early 2000s. He struggled with legal status for many years before finally being awarded the ‘Extraordinary Ability’ Green card due to his extensive involvement with a wide range of museums, galleries, publications, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropic endeavors. In 2008, his work was selected for a 110 year-old juried exhibition at the Louvre with the Societie Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

 

Shortly after his exhibition in Paris and finding inspiration among the magazine vendors that range along the Seine, Verbicky created the media paintings: complex and sculptural mixed media artworks that became his vessels for communicating about a society oversaturated by media. By utilizing rare historical content, including both obsolete and persisting brands and advertisements, as well as vintage graphics, Verbicky has constructed a large oeuvre of densely layered and unique compositions that ensnare the viewer by engaging the natural human proclivity to find order in chaos, to sort and assign meaning as a way to navigate the world. In this process, he reminds the viewer that they are constantly being influenced.

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Verbicky lives and works in Southern California.