James Bishop

James Bishop evokes the European and American post-war abstraction and color field aesthetics in his abstract architectural compositions. His best-known abstract paintings are distinguished by a muted monochrome palette, architectural shapes, and human-sized canvases that showcase his ability to represent structure, luminosity, and architectural space. Bishop, the recipient of a 1970 Guggenheim Fellowship, investigates the ambiguous relationship between the material surface of the painting and the inner expanse that the luminosity of the painting conveyed. Working on a 194 centimeter square canvas, Bishop manipulates delicate layers of paint to create geometric structures that invite the viewer to linger and intimately engage with them. His work has been shown at the Whitney Biennial and is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.