James Stroud

Painter and printmaker, James Stroud explores the contemporary urban experience through his geometric abstractions. Best known for his series, Urban Grids and Open City, the latter refers to the wartime tactic of relinquishing protection of a city under immanent threat of invasion in order to safeguard its citizens and landmarks from violent insertion. Often using oil on canvas, Stroud layers different geometric patterns one on top of the other to build dense, abstract environments in which the underlying structures are still hazily visible through the crush of competing shapes, patterns and colors.