Scrubbing Bubbles. 2009, 24” x 28”, oil on canvas.

“The themes I explore in my paintings, commodities and currency, serve as social connectors, embodying universal qualities. I create totemic images that reveal the fetishizing nature of capitalist economies. My work battles the hegemony of the commodity, and the economic order that has made this state of affairs possible.”

Drive I, 2009, 34” x 36”, oil on canvas.

“In this series I create strange amalgams of images taken from U.S. currency and store bought commodities. Both of these entities embody abstract equivalences of value. Acting in concert, these forces have come to colonize every aspect of contemporary life. Social relations have become reduced to the cold “objective” exchanges between commodities and money. We are at the mercy of these powers; and because of this we are particularly vulnerable to the whims of a volatile economy.”

Carry Me Away, 2009, 22” x 16”, oil on canvas.

“When Karl Marx used the term commodity fetishism, he was critiquing capitalist society’s tendency to regard itself as highly advanced. By using the word fetish, he was employing a term routinely associated with “primitive” religions. Marx was asserting that modern society is based on spurious beliefs that lead to the worship of abstract commodities with a religious devotion.”

Loomings, 2009, 36” x 34”, oil on canvas.

“In these paintings, I capture this notion that there is a counterfeit ideology at the center of free-market economies. I create totemic objects to represent our own clannish worship of commodities and money. The work depicts out of control market forces; it captures the manic energy of the commodity as it interacts with money.”

Drive II, 2008, 48” x 60”, oil on canvas.

In the late Nineties and early Aughts James Paulsen lived in Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and Astoria. He is a native of Albany, New York and currently resides in Buffalo. James received his BFA and MFA degrees from the University at Buffalo. He has taught in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Rochester and the Visual Studies Department at the University of Buffalo. To see more of his artwork visit his website:www.jamespaulsen.com