James Kimberly's profession was that of university professor. There are gaps in his artistic work because of the demands of his profession. He began painting in 1967. His first paintings were realistic: Boats in the Fog, Hulah Station, (A little abandoned railroad station on the Oklahoma prairie), The California Coast, Fall Forest (dominated by red leaves), Rose in a Blue Vase, and Schizophrenia (Hard engraved base covered with a red Glaze). He also did a very large abstract painting. From this point on, his paintings were abstract.

He largely trained himself. He had one course with Anne Burkholder, a well-known Lincoln, Nebraska, landscape artist. Following this course, he discovered the work of Johannes Itten, the great colorist. He studied Itten's principles of color in great detail. A number of his paintings uses a principle set forth by Itten. This principle is the use of complementary colors mixed with gray to the value of the pure colors (red, yellow and blue) and set beside or around the pure colors to draw all of them flat on the canvas. This causes the colors and their complements to reflect one another which creates faint movement and makes the painting glow. He also invented another way to draw colors back to the canvas. This process involves making the area of pure colors proportional to their values.

In the 1980's he became very active. During the decade, he won places in six important exhibitions. He had three single paintings in three annual Nebraska state-wide shows. These were sponsored by the Nebraska Arts Council and juried by a person or persons selected by the Arts Council.

He also had three single paintings in three Fred Wells ten-state shows. These were juried by curators of art museums. All six paintings were abstracts.

In the last two years, he has developed a completely new style of painting. he calls the process that is involved, "Controlled Randomness."

With a paint knife, he lays down several pure colors and creates a random design in the whole layer with the paint knife. Then he goes over each pure color with its complement, letting the pure color show through. He may or may not create a design in the layer of complementary colors. Sometimes he puts down the complementary colors first and puts the pure colors over them. When the painting is dry, he goes over the entire painting with a very light coat of white. The white reveals the random design or designs he has created. He deliberately uses the paint knife to create random surfaces in all phases of creating the paintings. It is this process that makes the paintings unique.