Jason Needham
Fine Artist - Denver, Colorado and Kansas City, Missouri

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Jason Needham's paintings are inspired and evolve out of simple things. People and places, isolation in childhood, and an early obsession with cartoons and comic books influence his work. Through the process of painting, everyday experience is exaggerated and transformed. Jason Needham received his BFA from the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He has shown throughout Colorado, recent exhibitions include "Scratchboards" at ZIP 37 Gallery in Denver, and "Swing Shift" at the Arvada Center, Arvada, CO.


High Noon "Needham is doing figural abstraction with hard edges -- as seen in 'High Noon'  -- that includes an admirably creative combination of aesthetic attributes. His work is based partly on comic-book illustrations and partly on pre-modernist prints from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I see Posada and Krazy Kat, along with a big dash of German Expressionism. An emerging artist, Needham has mostly shown his work at alternative spots, especially Zip 37, which makes this exhibit at the Arvada Center a true career breakthrough for him.

The strengths of Needham's paintings are many. He has tremendous control of the brush, creating crisp divisions between colors, and his surfaces are extremely even and finely done. Especially unusual are his awkward but somehow balanced compositions, which never miss." 
-- Michael Paglia, WESTWORD, 11-4-04




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Downtown Aurora Visual Arts
DAVA Florence Street Mural Project:
Jason started this project in the Fall of 2004, working at DAVA with youth groups twice a week for several months, teaching the youth about drawing and composition. One important lesson was about how small pieces of imagery can come together to form a huge completed artwork. Drawings the youth made were incorporated into large mural scenes. Then Jason and the youth groups started painting the scenes onto large sections of MDO boards. The painting work was finished by Jason and a few volunteer friends, and erection was in June of 2005. The resulting mural is over 400 square feet, in five sections, capturing many images from downtown Aurora and combining them into a sweeping vision of community life and energy.

The mural sections add color and life to Florence Street, and can be seen by hundreds of people driving west through Aurora on Colfax Avenue. The common horizon line and sky/cloud scheme runs through all five sections and draws the entire block into a common art experience.

Just one of the mural sections.

Just one of the mural sections.

Just one of the mural sections.

Above are mural photos. To see the entire five murals in the DAVA mural project visit the SW corner of East Colfax and Florence Street, Aurora, Colorado.



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Contact Jason Needham for new contemporary art
paintings, drawings, prints and scratchboards.


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Jason, photographed by Matt Needham
Much like an image from Jean Cocteau's "Orphee," the artist sits at the Poet's Cafe. Art imitates dream.

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See more Jason Needham art at Flickr

CONTACT:

Jason Needham
4421 Booth St
Kansas City, KS 66103

You can reach me at 303-831-6291 or 913-677-1367
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Email:
Email


Visit ZIP 37 Gallery :
3644 Navajo St
Denver, CO 80211
Hours: Fri 7pm-10pm, Sat & Sun noon-5pm.
and by appointment 303-477-4525




LINKS TO OTHER SITES:
  • Matt Needham Photography
  • Denver Art Museum
  • Arvada Center
  • Downtown Aurora Visual Arts
  • WestWord Newspaper
  • Rocky Mountain News
  • Kansas City Artists Coalition

  • Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

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