Through the media of sculpture, video, installation, photography, and drawing James Drake has explored political, social, and universal themes. His recent work Tongue-Cut Sparrows (Inside Outside), centers on video projections of women standing on a sidewalk while communicating with prisoners inside an El Paso jail. Much of the recent artist’s work is preoccupied with international borders and political and social tension that is created. His earlier bodies of work focused on animal-human relationships, socioeconomic themes, and underlying religious notions.

James Drake was born in Lubbock, Texas. He holds a BFA and an MFA degree from the Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States including one-person exhibitions at Diverseworks Artspace, Houston, TX; SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; La Jolla Museum of Art, CA; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX; and the Alternative Museum, New York. His work was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial and is represented in numerous public and private collections. Drake is the recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts grants. The artist lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.