James Hyde creates art that appears rigorously vernacular. The materials provide access to the viewer, resonate with them, and perhaps awaken a desire to believe in the work or be transported by it.
— Alison Green
James Hyde is an American contemporary artist born in 1958 in Philadelphia, currently based in Brooklyn. Since the 1980s, he has developed a multidisciplinary practice that pushes the boundaries of painting, sculpture, and photography. His approach is distinguished by the use of unconventional materials—plaster, nylon, chrome, steel, polystyrene, glass, and more recently photography—which he assembles and transforms to explore the physicality and spatiality of the artwork.
Hyde regards the pictorial surface as a topological field, playing with textures, planes, and the relationship between the support and the surrounding space. His work questions the traditional boundaries of painting, often incorporating architectural elements or references to popular culture and art history. He has also worked as a building contractor, an experience that informs his understanding of art as a process of construction and deconstruction.
His works are held in the permanent collections of major institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Guggenheim Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. A recipient of several awards—including the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Pollock-Krasner Grant, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship—James Hyde also teaches at prestigious institutions such as The Cooper Union and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.