These spectacular, complex, mixed-media paintings of Jim Barsness fuse such disparate sources as medieval European religious painting and 1960s Pop art to create haunting and sometimes bizarre scenes that alternately mock and celebrate various aspects of human behavior. Jim Barsness was born in Bozeman, Montana and currently lives in Venice, California. His work has been reviewed in Artforum, The Los Angeles Times, ARTnews, and The San Francisco Chronicle. This spectacular oversized collection includes 16 full-color plates and essays by renowned critics Bill Berkson and John Yau.

"An accomplished and quite stunning body of work."
– Susan Kandel, Los Angeles Times

"Barsness seeks to create a relationship to the canvas that is as much about contact and sensation as it is about the autobiographical scenes, moments evertday life, portraits, mythic and religious subjects drawn from art history, and tableaus of social commentary that pervade his canvases. In fact the articulation of such themes may be of less importance than the arousal of a tactile sensibility. It is such an awakening of touch that he is really after and why the rounded, bulbous feel of early twentieth-century cartoons often crops up in his work."

–Thyrza Nichols Goodeve