Mark Vessey

James Verbicky was born in Edmonton, Canada in 1973. He currently lives and works in Southern California. He has been recognized for his mixed-media works or “media paintings.” These are large sculptural assemblages of Baltic birch wood covered in vintage advertisements for popular brands and imagery from foreign magazines bought along the Seine in Paris.

His densely layered, unique compositions ensnare the viewer by engaging the natural human proclivity to find order in chaos, to sort and assign meaning as a way to navigate the world. In this process, he reminds the viewer that they are constantly being influenced. 

In 2008, his work was featured in a 110 year-old juried exhibition at the Louvre with the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His “media paintings” employ vintage advertisements, paint, and sculptural elements, embracing concepts of consumerism, mass media, and popular culture.

He begins his artistic process by arranging the layers of paper in a horizontal grid, paying homage to pioneering Modernists and Minimalists such as Piet Mondrian, Kenneth Noland, and Morris Louis. Then, to create a sense of depth, he applies a resin topcoat so that the images on the backside bleed through to the front. The deliberate use of vibrant, clashing colors illustrates the ultra-saturated nature of media in 21st century life.

His works are counted in thousands of important private, public, celebrity, and museum collections in countries all over the world and have been auctioned by Sotheby’s and Christie’s.