James Bullough

James Bullough (1978) is an American artist who lives and works in Berlin, Germany. His studio paintings and huge monumental murals combine delicately handled realistic portraiture with crude graphic distortion and abstraction.

Inspired by the gritty urban graffiti he saw as a youth, Bullough tapped into his energy, learning traditional realist oil painting techniques by studying the old masters.

By combining the momentum of one and the technical precision of the other, his work is about staging compelling contrasts and juxtapositions. Whether working with spray paint on massive facades or oils, Bullough's work strikes a delicate balance between realistic portraiture and stylized distortions, bordering the traditional and the modern.