James Neal

I’m an artist- actor, writer and painter- based in New York. I began acting in the summer of 2024, painting in the summer of 2018 and am writing a memoir. I lead a rich life- without being wealthy.

My paintings tend to weaponize the male form to render the complex emotions triggered by negotiating identity in a world that vacillates between toleration of and contempt for otherness. By recasting the otherwise charged symbolism of the erotic male form, I put forth a challenge to normative constructions of masculinity, beauty and morality -- coaxing the viewer to play a role in this dynamic of otherness.

I am a native of North Carolina and live in Brooklyn with my partner Dylan. I have two adult sons and Dylan and I have two rambunctioius cats who rule the roost. After graduating from Chapel Hill and the University of Chicago I worked as an investment banker, CEO of several start-up companies, producer of the play “Jeffrey” at the Geffen Playhouse, and headed a film and TV production services company in the West Village. In 2008 I became the second openly-gay person in US history to run for the US Senate (D-NC).

In 2019 I completed a compilation of 50 portraits in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. My work has been featured at outdoor expositions in Montpellier and Paris, respectively, as well group exhibitions Transforming Minds at the East Village Art Collective in New York and Send Me Nudes at nAd Gallery in Brooklyn.

I have been a contributing writer on equality and justice issues to a host of publications, and a lecturer on contemporary US politics as an adjunct professor- focusing on the corrosive influence of money in politics. News outlets CNBC, NPR, NBC, ABC, FOX, Channel One (Britain) and ORF (Austria) have featured me as a guest.