James Osher was born in Cleveland and studied at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and San Francisco Art Institute, CA. He received his M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts, after studying with John Baldessari and Alan Karpow. He became very successful as an artist, creating conceptual works (such as a large-scale urban environmental sculpture project for Cleveland State University). In 1979, he stopped making art objects and embarked on a 13-year career in the investment industry. In the early nineties, however, several personal dramatic events made him realize the personal need to communicate through art. In 1995, James L. Osher abandoned the investment industry to fully concentrate on creating art. (via Contessa Gallery)
By appropriating highly composed and executed subjects that have withstood curatorial vetting, Osher eliminates the issue of the contents’ significance. Similar to the appropriation of commercial icons by Pop artists, the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp, and the compositions of many Hip Hop artists, this body of work questions assumed relationships within the art environment as well as independently sustaining its own aesthetic and narrative presence. His art is not documentary in nature but is experiential, object oriented, where content expands beyond a narrative subject matter to include the physical and conceptual experience of viewing.
