James Drake is an interdisciplinary artist currently working in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His drawings, video, sculpture, photography, printmaking and installations, investigate the human condition, emotions, and systems of communication, oftentimes through allegory to underscore the cyclical nature of history. Drake received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and Master of Fine Arts degree from the Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles, California. He is the recipient of numerous awards, which include a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Grants, and a Nancy Graves Award for Visual Arts.

In 2007 his work was featured at the 52nd International Venice Biennale, Think With the Senses, Feel With the Mind: Art in the Present Tense, curated by Robert Storr, and in 2000 his work was featured in the Whitney Biennial. Drake’s work can be seen in many permanent collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Blanton Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, San Antonio Museum of Art, Art Museum of South Texas, El Paso Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Mexico Museum of Art, The Lannan Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (La Jolla), Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Santa Fe Institute, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Six monographs have been published on Drake: Que Linda La Brisa, University of Washington Press, 2000; James Drake, University of Texas Press, 2008); James Drake: Red Drawings & White Cut-Outs, Radius Books, 2011; James Drake Salon of A Thousand Souls, New Mexico Museum of Art, 2012; 1242 James Drake: Anatomy of Drawing and Space (Brain Trash), Radius Books and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 2014 and James Drake Tongue-Cut Sparrows, Radius Books, 2023.