Jim Chapman has been a working, exhibiting, and award-winning artist since the 1970's, when he studied in the southern Appalachian mountains of North Carolina with Warren Dennis, William Dunlap, and Noyes Long, as well as with John Groth of the Arts Students League in New York City.

He has traveled widely in the United States, Europe, and Asia, working in the media of painting and photography on commercial projects for Crown Publishing, the North Carolina Department of Tourism, and a number of private commissions. In 1985 he assisted Christo and Jeanne-Claude on their Surrounded Islands project in Miami, Florida.