James Tughan, a pastel artist, in his “Cartographic Realism” employs a marriage of aerial visual mapping, natural symbolism, and a Christian theology of the person. This style of imagery respectfully draws metaphors for the seen and unseen world of spirit from the natural surface topography of the visual subject matter itself. It exploits amazing detail and surface patterning, texture, colour, lighting and narrative possibilities. Recently, James has been working with a more abstract application of drawing, alongside his students, and alongside his poetry. One of these approaches is a semi-realist interpretation of a Pollock-style abstraction. (Roadsigns) These styles infer that there is more to see than immediately meets the eye that is suggested by mapping, the mapping of ideas. His Visual work has been commissioned by major corporations throughout North America and such magazines as Rolling Stone, Esquire, Saturday Night and House & Garden. James is artist in residence at MDC.

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