Today we’d like to introduce you to Kevin Perkins.
Kevin, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I teach high schoolers and started painting because I was hired to teach the subject but had only taken an introductory course in college. I was terrified to start teaching because my knowledge of painting was limited to some basics that I learned 5 years before I got hired for the job. So, my pursuit was kind of out of necessity but in a way, it was also a continuation of what I have always done, which is to make stuff. Pursuing painting has given me a focused creative outlet.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
My landscapes are not just about painting the outdoors. Often a painting will develop out of a feeling or mood rather than an attempt to paint a particular place. My interest in the landscape as a subject comes out of my belief that the land holds a depth, life and death, history. In this way, painting a landscape can never be benign. The simple recording of a place does not hold or sustain my interest because it lacks this depth. Therefore, these paintings are not a specific local; they are an expression of feeling carried through brushstroke and color through the platform of nature.
Most of my landscapes are painted from memory or start from a photo that I’ve taken. The forms change and the colors evolve in an intuitive way.
Artists face many challenges, but what do you feel is the most pressing among them?
Social media! It’s a double-edged sword. It makes it incredibly easy to put your work out there and develop an audience but at the same time it’s a quick glance from that audience at best and then on to the next image. An audience in that way has an incredibly short attention span. I have many other thoughts about social media but this is the big one that comes to mind.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
My work can be seen online at my website or on Instagram and I’m showing some work with two galleries, Allison K Bellinger in Inverell, Australia and Curatorial & Co. in Sydney, Australia this month and next month. Studio visits are always welcome too!
Contact Info:
- Website: Kevinperkins.us
- Email: kevinkperkins@outlook.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/kevin_perkins_
Image Credit:
These are various shots of my work in the studio. Some figurative, some landscape.
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