Jim Briare

Jim Briare is a Las Vegas-based artist who has been making and destroying things for as long as he can remember. As a kid, that meant 8mm films and acting. Over the years, that curiosity expanded into radio, culture jamming, spontaneous performance art, photography, drawing, sculpture, video art, digital experimentation and the occasional idea that was difficult to categorize.

Curiosity, experimentation and disruption continue to drive his work. Jim moves comfortably between media, sometimes deliberately breaking down an aesthetic statement to see what unexpected thing might emerge from it. Technology is another material to explore, manipulate and occasionally misuse. His Tweet to Art project transformed the words and data of social media posts into abstract digital artworks and became an interactive installation at the Life Is Beautiful Music & Art Festival. His photography was selected for Brian Eno and Warp Records’ DAY OF LIGHT project, and his work has ranged from highly graphic drawings and photography to sculpture, performance, video, digital art and collaborative experiments.

Las Vegas has been both home and creative laboratory. Jim was a charter member and later Chair of the Las Vegas Arts Commission and has spent much of his life involved in the city’s art and creative communities. He has made art for exhibitions, public spaces, community projects, and sometimes simply because an idea seemed interesting enough to chase.

There is another side to the story. Jim has also spent his career as a designer and creative leader, bringing the same curiosity to visual communication, brands and creative teams. That work has given him opportunities to collaborate with remarkable people, solve unusual problems and make things on a very different scale. But the instinct behind it has always been the same.

Make something. Break it. See what happens.