James Ballantyne has been painting for over 20 years. A self-taught Auckland artist whose main medium is oils, James loves to use vibrant colour and lose brush strokes to paint his subjects.
James trained in 3D animation early in his career, where he worked on TV shows, movies and finished working in the industry as an Animation teacher with Freelance Animation College, now called Animation College.
In 2013 James decided to pick up the paint brush fulltime and focus on portraits developing his impressionist style moving away from realism. In 2015, James held his first art exhibition on Maori people with Tamoko tattoos. The success of this exhibition saw James enter into The Adam Portrait Award in 2016 where his painting was picked to be exhibited on a touring roadshow around New Zealand.
Exhibitions: 2017 - October - Face Of A Daughter Charity Auction - Worked with Tearfund and Nvader to raide money to fight human trafficking by raising over $17,000, beating out target of $10,00 - All six painting sold at Auction with an extra blank canvas to auctioned off on the night 2017 - June - Church of the Good Shepard fundraising auction - One painting donated 2016 - July - Matariki Exhibition at the Helensville Art Centre - Peoples Choice Award 2016 - February - Adam Portrait Award Entry - Top 59 out of 600 entries exhibition - Year long travelling exhibition 2015 - August 28th - Judge at the Trust Art, Sculpture & Photography Exhibition 2015 - July 5 - July 31 - Moko Portrait Exhibition 4 Paintings at the Helensville Art Centre 2015 - June 17 - July 4 - Moko Portrait Exhibition 11 Paintings at the Lake House Art Centre Work History: 2009 - 2013 - I worked as a CGI Tutor at Animation College of NZ in Auckland. I loved teaching and got a huge kick out of students who grew to become amazing artists under my guidance. 2006 - 2009 - I worked in Huhu studios for 3 years doing various jobs as an Animator, Modeller, Texture artist, Rigger
