James Anthony Bearden, American, born 1964. Bearden was raised in the Midwest, earning B.A.'s in both Fine Art and Visual Communication from Grandview College in Des Moines, IA. After graduating, he worked for 20 years as a graphic designer, spending 17 of those years as Art Director of a large advertising agency. He recieved 51 Addy Awards in that time. Post 9/11 realities left him unable to sustain a full-time living as a graphic artist, and freelanced while learning how to create sculpture from metal and steel. He now has his own studio in Des Moines and recently collaborated with Lowy on an exhibition titled: Brutalist Redux. The works below hail from that exhibition. In his own words: "I work rhythmically with repetitive and cohesive elements, the unconcious voids reveal themselves to create a necessary tension in my work. Cutting, hammering, melting steel, bronze and copper in an investigation of volumetric form and constructionist abstraction. Intentional controlled construction. Brutal, fused, corrupted, natural chaos."