Jim Bloom American, b. 1968

Jim Bloom was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1968 and intended to be a writer. He suffered a debilitating back injury as the result of an automobile accident in 2002 and developed a movement disorder which caused painful muscle contractions and tremors. Unable to sit for prolonged periods and troubled by the mental issues that ensued, Bloom began to express his pain and frustration through art. His earliest output was raw with anger, taut with emotions and possessed a great wit and irony. 

Bloom uses his art to get “inside somewhere,” away from his tics and anxiety about fitting into the outside world. His work allows him to “go off to another part of myself that’s true.” He concentrates his creative energies by expressing himself through cutting, layering, and painting with available materials such as cardboard, found objects, wood, newspaper, paper plates, acrylics, house paint, watercolors, crayons, markers, pencils, pen, or charcoal. His collage-like scenes are often scrawled with words or insightful expressions. 

Jim Bloom comments on inappropriate situations, personal or observed vulnerabilities, bad behavior, popular culture, and gender issues. He is outspoken, bold and unfiltered. Whether it is therapy for his personal condition or pure expression of creative energy, his work is raw, simultaneously dark and funny, and above all, undeniably provocative.