James Roberts

medium: oils

James Roberts was interested in art from a young age, but his involvement in the arts has varied. After he finished his education in Colorado, he returned to Michigan, got a teaching certificate, and began raising a family. He only painted sporadically during this time, practicing a variety of subjects and at one point completing a series of paintings on landscapes of the American southwest. 

In 2000 he began teaching K-8 art classes in Big Rapids Schools, which later led to elementary classroom teaching. His education career took up much of the time and energy he could spend on painting. After 15 years at Big Rapids Schools, he retired and was able to devote more time to his passion for art. He became a full-time artist and was drawn to painting landscapes of places he had visited, particularly Scotland and Ireland. “I find the starkness, the simplicity and the wildness-not to mention the skies-of these places very compelling,” James says. “I hope a viewer of one of my landscapes will feel a desire to visit that place, or one like it, and a desire to preserve such places.”