Jim Stallings

Macon, Georgia, USA

People often over think art. It’s just a lot of energy that comes together in one place.

That has always been a simple way to characterize Jim’s thoughts on art and especially his own painting style. He always
paints quickly and with a lot of energy. Having worked for many years in an artistic, technical industry, it was
the everyday attention to detail that made Jim seek an outlet to express his talent more freely. In 1997 Jim studied art for several months under Clarence Betleyoun who is an accomplished painter and instructor. He concluded his study and continued to developed his palette knife technique on his own.

Jim, after a short time, began displaying his paintings locally, but it was exhibiting at his friend’s mother’s gallery The Stofko-Dixon Line that transformed Jim from being a “weekend hobbyist” to a true painter. One evening, Jim received a call fromTerri and Wayne Wetendorf who were opening a new restaurant in Forsyth, Georgia called Grits Cafe. They had stopped at the Stofko-Dixon Line, seen his work and wanted it in their restaurant. So with a hand shake they took everything he had available, both in the gallery, and his home.

Jim continued to paint and exhibit in galleries and exhibitions both locally and regionally over the next 15 years until a 2012 fire at Grits Cafe destroyed both the restaurant and years of Jim’s work. He did not paint for months and even considered not painting in the future. Later that year the Wetendorfs asked Jim to hang new paintings in the rebuilt Grits Cafe. Jim hit his “reset button” and began painting again, this time with more enthusiasm than before.

Jim has been represented by the Dan Goad Gallery on St. Simons Island, Georgia, Hollis Gallery in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and The Stofko-Dixon Line in Bolingbroke, Georgia. He has exhibited at The Stofko-Dixon Line, The Gallery at Theatre Macon, The Macon Arts Alliance Gallery, the Georgia National Fair, and the Quinlan Visual Arts Center.

His work is in corporate and private collections in the United States, Canada, and the U.K. It was this renewed enthusiasm for painting and his love of Led Zeppelin that prompted Jim to reach out to Scott and Ruth Roe at Bron Yr Aur. What began as a simple request for the use of photographs quickly developed into “The Bron Yr Aur Project”. Scott described the whole thing as “organically coming together” and for the first time since Jimmy Page and Robert Plant’s famed visit to the Cottage some 40 years ago, an effort is being made to honor the quiet little cottage that is hidden in the hills surrounding Machynlleth. Jim’s works are the first commissioned paintings of Bron Yr Aur. Jim renders his subjects with a vivid impasto effect. Using a limited palette of colors, he works in both oil and acrylic applying the paint with knives, brushes and even paper towels, preferring to use pure color from the tube with little mixing on the palette.

www.jstallings.com