Interview with artist Jim Gunnell
Jim Gunnell is an artist from Central Arkansas who works primarily in the medium of digital collage. But he takes digital medium one step further by utilizing AI to generate images that he weaves into a storyboard of life experiences and self-discovery. More of Jim’s work can be found at Red Door Gallery in North Little Rock.
AAS: Jim, where did you grow up?
JG: I grew up on a farm in Southeast Arkansas, close to Almyra. Our house was approximately five miles from Almyra, twenty miles from Stuttgart, and fifteen miles from DeWitt. I attended DeWitt public schools.
I was born on April 1, 1961 and weighed in at nine pounds even—the smallest of four children. I was a chubby kid and because my mom had a charge card at Sears, Roebuck & Company, I wore the ever-popular Husky Toughskins jeans. They were built to last, which meant my mom could buy them an inch or two larger than I needed so that I could grow into them. It was the 1960s and we were poor.
I started working for real money when I was about 12 years old. My grandparents, who lived close by, paid me five dollars to mow their acres-large lawn. We didn’t own a riding lawnmower, so I mowed every square inch of their lawn with a push mower. I’ve been a bit OCD my whole life so you can imagine the frustration of trying to mow straight lines that went on for a hundred yards. This was also before the days of Weedeaters so I had to use clippers to edge the grass around the 30 or so trees. It was very important to me to do a good job. I loved looking at the finished product.
When I was fifteen, I got my first “real” job. I worked at the Agricultural Research and Extension Center, which we called “the experiment farm”. It was about 7 miles from our house. I would drive an old lime green Ford F-150 or ride my bike to work. During the summers in southeast Arkansas the air was thick with dust from the silty clay soil, and the humidity was so high that, given the time of day, it was as if I was breathing mud.
My job at the Research and Extension Center was loathsome. Three of us would sit on makeshift benches on the front of a tractor, riding back and forth across a field, spraying an array of toxic chemicals on plots of soybeans. The herbicides would inevitably coat our faces and make their way into our noses.
At 18, during my first summer home from Hendrix College, I was hired as a lifeguard at Oak Hills Country Club in DeWitt. DeWitt was a town of forty-two-hundred souls, and I can’t think of one good reason why a country club would be a necessity in a town of 4,200.
Whether I was mowing acres of grass, spraying toxic chemicals from a tractor, or saving lives at a place that put country into Country Club — regardless of what I was doing—leaving southeast Arkansas was something that was always on my mind. I graduated Hendrix in 1983 and attended U of A where I obtained an M.Ed. in adaptive physical education. I would return to graduate school in 1987 to get an M.Ed. in environmental science and a teaching certificate. I taught biological sciences for 14 years and then moved into corporate training for the next 20 years. I officially retired in June of 2024.
AAS: You started creating art relatively later in your life. Were you interested in art as a kid?
JG: My grandmother, Miss Pattye, was an elementary teacher for 31 years. She always had fun games and activities for us to do. We also did art projects in Sunday School and during Vacation Bible School—roosters made from an assortment of colored corn kernels, macaroni necklaces, potholders, and even Jesus painted on a wood panel and covered with broken glass from an automobile windshield. This was decades before Pinterest, so you have to give the moms credit for their creativity. Our mother taught us to make necklaces from flowering weeds that grew in our yard. She also showed us how to make June bug kites, but that’s a story for another time.
I loved creating. I played the trombone in the school band and played the piano. I was average at both, but I enjoyed making music. I didn’t know anything about artists growing up, but if I had an artist role model growing up it was Pattie Freeman. In fifth grade, there was an art competition at school. Everyone in fifth grade was taught to draw a tree. Each of our pieces was glued onto a piece of poster board and hung on the walls around the cafetorium. Judges from the town, along with other teachers, inspected all of the works and decided which pieces would receive blue, red, white, or yellow (also ran) ribbons. I just knew I was going to win a blue ribbon. That tree I created was the best thing I’d ever drawn. When the judges left, each class was brought into the cafetorium one by one. I dashed over to my tree to see my blue ribbon. To my shock and dismay, I had received a yellow ribbon, which meant, thanks for trying to draw a tree. I scurried around looking for the tree that had been awarded my blue ribbon, and there it was. It was a magnificent tree, perfectly dendritic, perfectly shaded. This beautiful tree was signed by the artist, Pattie Freeman. I’ll always remember how lovely her tree was. I was happy that she had won the blue ribbon. She deserved it. Every chance I got, I would grab a pencil and a piece of paper and try to duplicate Pattie’s masterpiece. I never quite nailed it, but she inspired me to try harder.
“Most of my art begins with a story in my head. If the story demands surrealism, that’s where I go. If the story demands a different feel, then I head in that direction.”
AAS: What I really like about your work is that it is so varied – from Realism, of course, to Pop Art to Surrealism. What is your process for creating these images?
JG: Thank you, Phil. I believe that if I claim to be a creative, I can’t limit myself to one medium or one type of art. I’m self-taught. As I mentioned earlier, I was a science teacher for many years, so I love experimenting and problem-solving. Most of my art begins with a story in my head. If the story demands surrealism, that’s where I go. If the story demands a different feel, then I head in that direction. If I begin to create without having an idea or story in my head, my work is stifled. I imagine it, create a backstory, and begin.
AAS: Tell me about Jesuit. It is a texturally complex image.
Jesuit, digital collage
JG: I have a friend who is a writer, and she shared a story with me about the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus). I had wondered about Jesuit priests and what defined them as Jesuits. After reading about their history, I thought it would be interesting to create an image that told some of their story. I wanted it to be colorful and to have the feeling of an icon. As with most of my pieces that are designed to tell a story. This piece has an image of St. Ignatius, Jesus, the date the Pope approved the Jesuit order, the Latin phrase “Ad maiorem Dei gloriam” which was the motto of the Society of Jeus, and other symbols like IHS which is an emblem for the Jesuit order. At the time I was learning about Jesuits, I was working on a mixed media piece. The textured background in this image is a wooden panel with a pattern that I created using gesso. The circles and the geometric pieces behind the crosses are hammered brass. I took a photo of the piece, added colors, manipulated the image and voila. The background for the Jesuit piece was born. Then the question was where to place the images, how to light them, how to layer them. There has to be a balance in the composition.
AAS: In Everyone Deserves Art you present an interesting collection of recognizable and not so recognizable pieces of art. What were you hoping to convey in that piece?
Everyone Deserves Art, digital collage
JG: This piece began with my belief that everyone deserves access to art. I chose to set this image in a homeless shelter. This was the first piece where I had to rely on AI to create some of the images I wanted. I needed images of people facing away from the camera. After searching and searching, I realized that photographers are not in the habit of taking photos of people’s backs. So, I turned to AI to create the images I wanted. Each person you see in this piece took at least 20 attempts to get right. AI is an interesting tool, but the creator of the image has to nail the description with exact details, including the way the image is lit, the state of the clothing, the body language, etc. After several hours, I landed on the images that I wanted. Now I had to start building the room – the wall, the chair rail, the lighting, the floor. I wanted the ceiling to be high like in a museum. The exit sign among the lights is a sign of hope that there is a way out. I created an image for the elderly man and his dog to look at, imagining the old man when he was much younger. The lady on the bottom right originally had a companion, but I wanted her to be alone, staring at an aged Mona Lisa. She has all of her possessions in a grocery cart to her right. I also wanted to represent a young family. They are enthralled with Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and the youngest boy has dropped his stuffed rabbit on the floor. I wanted the lights to shine down on the people in a heavenly way. Lighting and shadows are incredibly important, and they are one of the last things I add. I believe that art should be hanging on walls everywhere.
AAS: I think Where’s My Damn Cornbread? is my most favorite image of yours. The composition and imagery are wonderful. There must be a story behind it.
Where’s My Damn Cornbread!, digital collage
JG: Well, the backstory is actually not a happy childhood memory. This piece is about the night my mom prepared a plate of food for my father and brought it to him while he sat impatiently in his recliner. He seemed frustrated by the timing of her delivery. She obviously should have seen that he was trying to put out his cigarette. Couldn’t she see that he was unable to steady the tray since he had a beer in one and a cigarette in the other? And the remote was on his lap. Give him time to move the remote out of the way, woman!
Seconds after she placed the tray of food on his lap, he yelled, “What the hell! What the hell? Where’s my damn cornbread? I’m not gonna sit here and eat this shit without cornbread!” Mom tried to explained that she didn’t have any cornmeal to make cornbread. She had baked rolls instead. He refused to eat. It was like watching a scene from a Tennessee Williams play.
I thought, “How can he be such an ass, and why did mom allow him to treat her that way?” I ate so much that night that I almost made myself sick, hoping it would ease the rejection and hatred that my father had spewed on my mom. As far as I know, she never forgot the cornbread again.
I think everyone’s art is autobiographical in a way. I mean, if you’d asked me how long it took me to complete a specific piece, I’d be tempted to say, “My whole life.”
AAS: So, you consider your images to be in some ways autobiographical?
JG: I think everyone’s art is autobiographical in a way. I mean, if you’d asked me how long it took me to complete a specific piece, I’d be tempted to say, “My whole life.” Because that’s what we are at this moment: a collection of the thoughts and feelings we’ve had since we were born. Some of the stories I tell through my art like Where’s My Damn Cornbread? are definitely taken from my life. Other stories I depict through art are historical. And others are fictional, surreal concoctions that live between the folds in my brain.
AAS: One of your more surreal images, which I really love, is Cockadoodledoo. Tell me about it.
Cockadoodledoo, digital collage
JG: This was a fun one to create. In my mind I wanted a chicken to happen upon a very large egg and be mesmerized by its size. Then I thought it would be interesting to create an egg that had an extraterrestrial feel. This would add a little interest and maybe fear from the perspective of the chicken. So now we have this very large extraterrestrial egg and a chicken. It’s very simple, but it evokes a couple questions in the viewer: “What is this and what must that chicken be thinking?” In my mind, I wanted the male chicken to be afraid. “What kind of giant, powerful hen must have laid this egg?” It’s a statement about the power of females to do the impossible and the relatively small contribution that males have. I should have titled it, Until You Can Do This, Shut Up!
AAS: You often feature famous artists and celebrities in your work. The one of Frida Kahlo titled A Ribbon Tied Around A Bomb is a powerful image, which I guess contains lots of hidden meanings. What is it about Kahlo that fascinates you?
A Ribbon Tied Around A Bomb, digital collage
JG: Oh, how I love Frida Kahlo. I’ve long been enamored by strong women. Before I begin many of my pieces, I spend hours researching the subject—where they were born, what their childhood was like, quotes, relationships, etc. If I’m going to tell a story through the art, it needs to be accurate. This piece contains lots of important data. Frida was born with spina bifida, hence the x-ray. She had polio when she was six. The house she grew up in was called La Casa Azul. She was 18 when she was in a streetcar accident that sent a handrail through her body. Her life was filled with physical and emotional pain. She was once described as a ribbon tied around a bomb. She had a tumultuous relationship with Diego Rivera. She died at 47. I created all the letters and numbers in the piece using photographs of license plates. I chose to do it that way because of her accident when she was 18.
AAS: Jim, you’ve had several shows recently, the most recent at Red Door Gallery. What kinds of responses are you getting from your work?
JG: I think the response has been great. Fusion artistry, as I call my work, is a relatively new form of art. I don’t know of anyone else in Arkansas who is doing what I’m doing. I am a storyteller. Artists are storytellers. My medium is photography, digital imagery, traditional components, and AI. The works I sell at my shows are original pieces of art. I’m confident that when people better understand this new medium, they will view it through a different lens.
The Kiss, digital collage
I don’t have any upcoming shows scheduled. I’ve created many pieces that highlight the male form. I would love to find a gallery willing to showcase that body of work. To me, my piece titled The Kiss is an example of the freedom to be whoever you are. As an artist, I create art that brings me joy. Regardless of what I create, it’s always an extension of me, my thoughts, my feelings, my imagination.
