The Problem with Wings
The Problem with Wings
SKU:JC1025557FBL
Story Behind the Art
Story Behind the Art
The tour of his studio was the highlight of any visit with James Christensen, a peek behind the curtain and a glimpse the Great Oz at work. Here one had the chance to see painting magic - the beginning, the middle, the end - as a new work came together.
At any given time Christensen could have around his studio 15 to 20 paintings in various stages of completion. They would be as small as three by five inches and up to six by eight feet. They could be found on sheets of paper, canvas, and most often, Masonite. Here, the fantastic, the heavenly, and Shakespearean could be found mixed in with great beauty, fable and lore.
The Problem with Wings was one of these works in James’ studio at the time of his untimely death in 2017 and resides in a state of creative suspended animation. It was perhaps the one he was most excited about completing and was the most popular piece in Work Left Undone - a gathering of those paintings in his studio when he died.
While we are left to guess at what more James would have added to the painting, we are quite certain of the story behind it. Doctrine in James’ church states angels have no wings. But, to an artist with the love of classical art such as Christensen, wings on angels embraced design, myth, and symbolism in a heavenly language immediately recognized by all.
The Problem with Wings was being created by James as an homage to good friend and avid fan who would embrace a new painting as “extraordinary” but also obliged to let him know there still existed, as far as certain things were concerned, a “problem with wings.”
About the Artist
About the Artist
Credendo Vides - By Believing, One Sees
942-2017.
The range of Christensen's subject matter and style are testament to the artist's imagination, creativity and understanding of art history. His drive to connect with the world weaves through his work like a ribbon, over mermaids, under saints, and around hunchbacks. Chistensen has created a rich and strangely familiar world that will take a lifetime to explore. His art is found in prized collections through out the world.
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Born in 1942 and raised in Culver City, California. He studied painting at Brigham Young University as well as the University of California at Los Angeles before finishing his formal education at BYU.
His honors and awards include being named a "Utah Art Treasure" as well as one of Utah’s Top 100 Artists by the Springville Museum of Art and receiving the Governor’s Award for Art from the Utah Arts Council. He had won all the professional art honors given by the World Science Fiction Convention as well as multiple Chesley Awards from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Opulent, colorful, Fantastic, Shakespearean, extraordinary: All words that aptly portray Christensen’s most popular artworks that have also been described as “creations from the land a little left of reality.” The result is a unique, kinetic kingdom where recognizable human emotions are often manifest in fish or fowl, utilizing the viewer’s own imagination as no other artist can. His art includes distinctive people, places and things that exist somewhere between adult dreams and childhood memories. “I don’t think of myself as a fantasy artist,” said Christensen. “I certainly have an affinity for myths, fables and ancient lore, but I also find time to create landscapes and other subjects which include commissions. What’s truly important to me is that my art is introspective and in turn challenges the mind’s eye of those who view it regardless of subject matter.”
Christensen’s fine art appears as works of art in paper, canvas, porcelain and bronze. His first book, A Journey of the Imagination: The Art of James Christensen, was published to great acclaim in 1994. His second, the adventure fantasy Voyage of the Basset, has more than 100,000 copies in print. His subsequent books include the inventive Rhymes & Reasons, published in May 1997, Parables (written by Robert Millet, 1999), The Personal Illumination Series and The Personal Illumination Journal (2000), a series of interactive journals, A Shakespeare Sketchbook (2001) and James Christensen, Foremost Fantasy Artist (2001). In 2008 his eighth book, Men and Angels, was published. Passage by Faith: Exploring the Inspirational Art of James C. Christensen, his last book was published in 2014.
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