Richard A. Kirk | Visual Artist | Author
"there is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion" Sir Frances Bacon, Of Beauty, Essays" 1625
Here is a new piece that I finished this afternoon called VOICES DRY AND HOLLOW. The title comes from lyrics of a song by Team Sleep called Tomb of Liegia: "Hear the crowd of ghosts, Their voices dry and hollow, Can't you hear their calls? They cheer me to the gallows." The art has no... Continue Reading →
Here is my piece for the In the Depths show to be held at Copro Gallery in August. The show is curated by Cris Velasco and features works themed around the writing of H. P. Lovecraft. I always associate the works of Lovecraft with the doldrums of summer. I was barely a teenager when I... Continue Reading →
Pierre Huyghe from LACMA on Vimeo. I came across the work of this artist, Pierre Huyghe today, thanks to a friend giving me one of his book covers. The video contains some arresting images, which resonated with me. Apparently there was a controversy about the dog in the video, but it was checked out and... Continue Reading →
One of the joys of the year coming to a close is thinking about what will come in the next year. This is a time when I make a lot of lists; possible names of new drawings, ideas for images, books I want to read and things to research. Right now I am thinking of... Continue Reading →
Along with a couple fairly involved ink drawings, I also have several paintings on the go. Everything is in various states, from OMFG why did I start this thing? to hey this is working. So, those of you who paint will know the piece above (put through a render on my "tin type" app) only... Continue Reading →
There is still much to be done on this new drawing, but having finished one fairly defined section I thought I'd share a work in progress (WIP). If you saw my earlier post on this piece, you'll notice that I have added to the title. "Tears of the Poppy" is a line taken from the... Continue Reading →
Here is a look at the drawing's bones. What you see here will soon disappear under layers of ink. I find these line drawings have a beauty of their own, which is why I always take the time to make a high resolution scan of them before rendering. The ink looks a bit darker here... Continue Reading →
I came across this image while poking around on the Morgan Library and Museum website. It's a beautiful sketch by Audubon. In the notes I discovered that Audubon had written a few lines in graphite on the back of the paper. I don't know the circumstances that would have enabled Audubon to work at such... Continue Reading →
Last summer, my friend Steve Venright, and a car load of his wonderful family, came through for a visit. I've known Steve since we were teenagers (gasp). I just found this photo, which I had quite forgotten about, in my camera. It's a good one don't you think? Besides being an amazing poet, Steve is... Continue Reading →
Fellow London artist Sarah Legault's animated film Dear Love is now available on her Etsy site. When I received mine, I found an actual book from the film enclosed in the DVD case! This film is visually beautiful as well as genuinely moving. I hope you'll check it out. - Richard.
Richard A. Kirk | Visual Artist | Author 