Jim Houser

Jim Houser is a skateboarder who designs skate decks for Toy Machine. His art has been featured in Strength,Juxtapoz and Tokion Magazines. Houser’s installations feature flatly painted, cryptic, cartoon imagery juxtaposed with folksy text and found objects such as discarded skate decks ,skate shoes and old window frames.Houser was included in the show “East Meets West” at the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art and was recently collected by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Excerpt from an interview with Shepard Fairey about his friend Jim Houser.

“A viewers reaction to an image says as much about them as the image itself says about its creator. When I think of Jim houser and his art, I’m alway struck by the bond he consistently forges with his audience, the way every work of his shows me a piece of myself while at the same time reflecting his own catharsis. Jim’s paintings and installations span the entire spectrum of human emotion, but he never seems to pass judgment, leaving the bias up to the viewer’s discretion. Being Jim’s friend is synonymous with being a collector of his art – no one is more generous when it comes to requiting the admiration he gets from the people around him. The pieces in my collection all stand out individually, but there’s something about the gestalt of his installations, the way that each compartment melds seamlessly into the integrated whole, that creates an atmosphere of a bigger picture. Maybe that’s just my interpretation of it.

I met Jim in 1995 through Ben Woodward, a RISD student and a cohort in my Obey Giant/Alternate Graphics screen-printing studio in Providence, Rhode island. Ben had told me about his best friend from Philadelphia, a rippin’ skateboarder who was stuck in a security guard job and wanted a change of scenery. I offered Jim a job cutting stickers in the studio – the most tedious task we had, but he took it without thinking twice. That was one of the last jobs he ever held. He worked for me for six months, all the while progressing as an artist, and then spent a summer on Cape Cod, where he met his future wife, Becky Westcott, who always encouraged him to keep creating, even if it meant she had to support both of them. He moved back to Philly shortly after, where he became one of the founding members of the Space 10 26studio. He’s dealt with more than his fair share of tragedy and desolation, but he still embraces life with a pass ion that transcends all adversity. I’ve always admired Jim for everything he’s gone through to keep making art, and the fact that he’s still making art after all he’s gone through.”

Read the rest of the interview here.

More about Jim houser on Fecal Face here.

Advertisement