Week 56: James R. Eads
“Hello, Beautiful World.”

Find him on Instagram, Tumblr, or his website.

James R. Eads is a painter whose visions of far-away places and intricate galaxies inside each human soul captivate, soothe, and invigorate me.

I came across Eads through his Prisma Visions tarot deck, which was a birthday gift a few years ago. I felt it only fitting to end the year with Eads, a parallel to how I will end my own year: pulling from his tarot deck to see what it says 2017 will have for me. (Spare me all skepticism; I don’t really think an entire year can be interpreted by a few cards. It’s magical all the same though, isn’t it?)

It is truly mind-boggling the million tiny details that Eads works into each illustration. From far away, they are mesmerizing. Up close, however, they become a whole other world to get lost in. This is a fitting description, considering so many of Eads’ works are about “shaking the shroud that clouds your mind” and knowing “you are greater than yourself” (to quote his Instagram).

Of course there is something Van Gogh-ish about Eads’ work. It’s more than that, however. Eads creates pieces that are as spiritual as they are mesmerizing, as otherworldly and deeply personal and interpersonal at the same time as Gogh ever was.

As much as his art is about nature or the night sky, so is it also about the swirling inter-connectivity between each of us. We are all born of star stuff, as the saying goes, and that to me is Eads’ message, distilled down to its purest form.