Jimmy Wright

Jimmy Wright is an expatriate American who has had a colorful career since graduating from the University of Berkeley with a degree in economics more than 35 years ago. Today the artist enjoys a high level of financial and popular success for the disarmingly simple paintings that he has been making for more than ten years.

His paintings made with a novel use of recycled materials including Styrofoam and old restaurant linens, have been populated with dogs, buffalo, polar bears and most recently the human figure. Upon reviewing the varying bodies of work Wright has produced during the past decade, we see that the central, iconic image has changed but his concern or “message” remains constant.

Wright acknowledges that when he first began incorporating into his paintings the scientific equations gleaned from various texts and periodicals he simply relished their visual qualities. Increasingly, as he understood what the economists were implying in their arcane language, his concern and alarm dictated a more considered approach.