James Tsoodle

Full blooded Native American, Kiowa/Taos Pueblo.

The subjects that James D. Tsoodle paints are Native American Warriors of the Northern and Southern Plains. Tsoodle himself is of Kiowa and Taos Pueblo Ethnicity.

On his website, www.jamesdtsoodle.com, he says: “I believe an artist can best portray the image by being well versed in the subject matter. Hopefully if I achieve this, others will be able to see the passion and power in not only the image but the pigment and flow and composition of the painting.”

One of the driving forces behind his art work began as a young boy and the struggles he went through as a child. He could not read until he was 14 years old due to what was much later diagnosed as dyslexia. As a result of this personal struggle, he found that his gift of painting was something he could do very well that pleased him as well as others. He has been self-taught from a very young age.

As a child, Tsoodle sold his first pen and ink drawings at age six when he attended the New Mexico State Fair with his parents who were selling jewelry there. He currently works with acrylic on canvas.

Tsoodle’s grandfather told him many stories when he was a child, stories about his people, and Tsoodle listened. These were stories that were not written down but were passed down as a part of their oral tradition.