Dakota James

There is a detail in her face that I saw before I saw anything else, and for a while it was the only thing I could see. That is why this canvas exists.

Who is Dakota James?

Dakota James is an American model who built her working audience on Instagram and has since moved into wider modelling assignments.

She has said in interviews that she started by posting her own pictures without a plan and grew the following from there, and that she does not want the work to stay limited to digital media.

This summary is put together from publicly available sources and has not been checked with her. If something here is wrong or she would rather it were not here, write to the studio and it is corrected or removed.

Painting Dakota James in the studio

Dakota (Pink Bikini) is also one of the largest paintings I have made, which matters more than it sounds. At full size the angle does something to you that a photograph of the painting cannot reproduce. You have to be in front of it.

Weeks of work, days at a time, with long gaps. No plan and no deadline. At some point I was finished; whether the painting is finished is a separate matter.

Dakota James paintings: what exists

Oil on stretched canvas, 120 x 80 cm, signed, one of one, from Painted Idols. Painted from a photograph she published herself. There is no print of it.

What is still available, and at what price, is on the cards below.