“I want to explore that tension between the surface quality—the material quality of the canvas itself, including the oil paint on the canvas—and the representation of space that pulls you through the canvas. That tension oscillates between an implied spatial depth and a complete lack of space in the sense of the two-dimensional material thing that sits on the face of the canvas.”
Jim Watt is an American artist and architect based in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Watt’s paintings and drawings are an obsessive exploration of space, form and material, a context that marries his work as a practicing architect. At Princeton University, where Watt earned his Masters in Architecture, teachers Michael Graves and Enrique Miralles espoused the Renaissance notion that architects must paint, draw, and sculpt to fully realize their ideas. Form, space, material, texture, color, and light are shared languages that transcend medium. Watt’s work as an artist is the opportunity to work without a structured, planned intention, instead playing in the tension between thought and instinct: discovery through the process of making.
Watt has a body of built buildings spanning North America, and his art is in private collections across North America, Europe, Asia. His work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Dwell Magazine, and The New York Times.
Jim Watt is represented by JIM KEMPNER FINE ART.