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
October has finally arrived and I have been in the studio working on a number of new pieces for upcoming shows and book projects. My most recent work is called For I Would Ride with You Upon the Wind. The piece is now available in an online show presented by Inverarity Gallery called “Monochrome: Goddess.”... Continue Reading →
I usually document my work with my iPhone as I progress. I thought I would share some production shots of “Otolith. I like to begin with a graphite line drawing, where the composition is worked out fully before inking. With this piece, I was most interested in the accuracy of carp skull and introducing movement... Continue Reading →
"Secret Affinities" is my first completed drawing of 2025. It tips the hat to a couple of my favourite artists—can you identify them? The idea for this picture came from a small sketch of a witch that I did a few years ago. In this image, I drew her with her with a prominent left... Continue Reading →
For the past few weeks I have been busy in the studio working on some new pieces. The pictures below are my most recent works and both are available in my Big Cartel webstore. Key Bearer, 2024, silverpoint, 12"x9" Key Bearer is a new silverpoint drawing executed on acid free hotpress illustration board. In this... Continue Reading →
No matter how surreal or fantastic my pieces finish up, they nearly always start with natural forms. No matter how surreal or fantastic my pieces finish up, they nearly always start with natural forms. The shapes of insects, plants, bones, fossils etc. are all building blocks I use to create composition and meaning in my... Continue Reading →
Currently in the studio I am working on a large drawing called EXTREMOPHILE. According to Wikipedia an extremophile is an organism that is able to live in extreme environments with conditions approaching or stretching the limits of what known life can adapt to. By that definition, one might argue taking on a 22" x 30"... Continue Reading →
Many of you that follow my work will have seen the images I created earlier this year for the vinyl reissue of KoRN Untitled—KoRn's 8th studio album. In this post I will show you some of the production shots I took while I was working on this project. It's my practice to document my work... Continue Reading →
Dance of Spring, 2023, graphite on paper, 10" x 10" A small drawing completed a few days ago. Where I am in Ontario, Spring has been slow in coming and the sky has been very grey. With luck, the sun will soon come from behind the clouds and things will warm up. Regardless, things are... Continue Reading →
For highly rendered ink drawings I like to start with a detailed graphite line drawing. This piece started life as a proposed book illustration. If you look carefully, you can see the vertical line that marks the edge of the original drawing. When the editor selected another piece in its place, I finished the drawing... Continue Reading →
Manuscript with Crow Skull A crow skull makes a poor paperweight, but casts a nice shadow. This is the manuscript of a novel I am currently working on—already woefully out of date as I’m in the process of a pretty major re-write (thanks to some on-point observations from my literary agent). I revise digitally using... Continue Reading →
Richard A. Kirk | Visual Artist | Author 