Jim Buckels, American (1948 - )

Among the generation of American artists now in their early forties, the Iowa born painter and printmaker Jim Buckels is a delightful anomaly: An artist more driven by his inner visions than by fashions and trends. Yet, his work possesses an innate sophistication that places it prominently within the post-modern mainstream.

In fact, Jim Buckels is a Neo-Surrealist of a peculiarly American breed — a creator of dream-like images, rendered in a menticulous modern airbrush technique with the crystalline clarity of a colonial limner. In his lithographs and serigraphs, as well as in his acrylic paintings, Buckels limns a seamless realm of fantasy that has won him a major reputation in remarkable short span of time.

Jim Buckels' fascination with fantasy began in early childhood, when his mother, who taught English composition and literature at Iowa State University, would read to him from storybooks illustrated by N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, and Hoeard Pyle.

Later, Jim Buckels' artistic talent won him a scholarship to the University of Northern Iowa, which his adventurous spirit compelled him to interrupt in his sophomore year, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army for a three year stint, including a tour of Vietnam.

Returning to civilian life in 1971, Jim Buckels resumed his studies at UNI, earning a bachelor's degree in art, and began his career as a freelance illustrator, becoming 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.