James Michael Starr is an assemblage and collage artist whose work has appeared in galleries and exhibitions in both his native U.S. and abroad. He was selected for inclusion in four consecutive Critic’s Choice exhibitions at the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art and included by invitation in the 2001 International Exhibition of Contemporary Collage in Paris, France, as well as in Assemblage 100, which toured New Zealand in 2004. Images of his art have been selected for reproduction in several books, including the 2006 French survey of contemporary collage, “L’art du Collage a L’aube du Vingt et Unieme Siecle (The Art of Collage at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century).” He is represented in Dallas by Conduit Gallery.
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Hitting the Rapids in Her Stream of Consciousness
By James Michael Starr
Posted in Art, Feature 1, Reviews, Visual Art on 29 October 2009
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Art Review
Ellen Frances Tuchman’s Out of My Mind is not so much insanity as it is savant. Like Raymond in the film, “Rain Man,” Tuchman rapid-fires free associates at the drop of a hackneyed phrase.

Blasting into Houston in my Art Car. On a mission from God.
By James Michael Starr
Posted in Art, Lives, Visual Art, _ on 27 August 2009
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Seeing “No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston” at the Contemporary Arts Museum, I think about the tremendous difference it makes when a city understands the role its own artistic community plays in cultural vitality.

Nature of the Beast
By James Michael Starr
Posted in Art, Lives, Visual Art on 26 August 2009
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Polycephelus, Kitten Deity, and Serpentine Geese are barnyard animals that, in a less tolerant time, might have been secreted out the back door of Hummel one stormy night and sold to the carnival sideshow. Now they are something not to be shunned but embraced.

Anxious and Heaven Bound
By James Michael Starr
Posted in Art, Lives, Visual Art on 25 August 2009
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Andrea Mellard, Curatorial Associate at the Austin Museum of Art, decided our work fit the show’s theme, Anxiety – work that “marks the current zeitgeist as we collectively hold our breath.” The only problem with Going to Heaven is that I don’t feel at all anxious about going to heaven.

To Houston With Bust
By James Michael Starr
Posted in Art, Feature 1, Lives, Visual Art on 24 August 2009
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Artist and Renegade Bus contributor James Michael Starr’s sculptures are sometimes large and unwieldy, making them tough to delivery to shows – especially out-of-town. This is the first in a series of dispatches from Starr as he takes his work to shows in Austin and Houston. The show in Austin is fittingly titled “Anxiety.”

Dallas Needs Perspective on Arts Progress
By James Michael Starr
Posted in -, Ideas on 18 May 2009
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Two years ago, the Dallas Art Dealers Association organized an event around a panel of local arts writers and museum representatives. The forum’s title unabashedly asked if we might not be the next New York City. They too wanted to glory in the rich cultural life Dallas appeared to be developing, but so much so, they weren’t willing to also acknowledge and deal with those niggling little obstacles still in the way.