IBUR
St. Louis based multi-media artist, James Ibur, is a Professor of Art and Coordinator of Ceramics for the Department of Communications, Design and Creative Arts at Saint Louis Community College-Meramec. He is a multi-disciplinary artist and curator with emphases on functional and sculptural ceramics, painting and drawing and is also a songwriter and musician with one solo record (Floating-2024) and four records with his band, Flying House (including Blood Red Moon, 2025) and Yellow Light releasing in Spring 2026.
He has participated in numerous solo and group art exhibitions regionally and nationally in his thirty-plus year career. He received an MFA from the University of Illinois/Champaign-Urbana, studied at UC/Davis and a BA from the University of Colorado/Boulder. Ibur completed residencies at both the Archie Bray Foundation and Banff Centre for the Arts.
Artist Statement
For vessels, I am interested in the intersection of usability or potential to use but not necessarily actual utility. This legitimizes the idea of container and containment which expands access to the inner and outer components of the narrative.
The outer surfaces are often covered with images of iconic landscapes with humorous and, at times, dystopian imagery or, by contrast, abstractions that create a "protection" for the interiors of the vessels.
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The 2D works connect similar iconic forms in atmospheric landscapes (inner and outer) suggesting complex narratives. Water, falling figures, clouds that eat each other and spaceships are all vehicles for magical narratives.
The protagonist, often the bearded king-part airplane, part road, part self-portrait, is clearly on a journey that is often "leaving" or "arriving" or "surviving" the challenges of animals and storms and a dynamic star-scape all the while warily interacting with buildings and mountainous landscapes and deep waters.
This animation, a music video called Floating People, is the first major synthesis of my songwriting and musicianship and my visual work.
