Changing Direction
F
or more than 40 years,
Jim Warren’s style of
painting has carefully followed techniques
with a creative sense of surrealism and
optical illusion. In his portrait of me for
the January/February 2001 cover of
Tampa Bay Magazine, entitled “You Are
What You Read,” he had painted me
reading the first of our magazines for
which he had created the cover, with
a woman’s hair cascading down in the
image of a waterfall. That was typical
of his work over the years, as he painted
award-winning record covers, book
jackets and even tee shirts. All of his
work had carefully defined edges that
could be seen if you studied the
otherwise ordinary looking subject.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE 57
By Aaron R. Fodiman
In this portrait, Jim used several
touches of surrealism that,
at first, go undetected.
The Art of