KitPikeStudio@gmail.com
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
Generally in my work I am pursuing one of two themes: recording specific subject matter or exploring and expressing my faith. My faith is the theme of my whole life, and will inform my art whatever medium, subject, or style it takes, but I struggle in my efforts to express it more clearly just as I struggle to live it more completely. Part of the problem is merely craft: I need more experience in drawing a certain subject or in a technique in order to get this idea onto paper. Here I spend time on drawing deer, for example, or make prints of forms that interest me: buildings, flowers, animals, seashells. Some of this work is buried in sketchbooks and some results in finished pieces appreciated by others for their own reasons. This work also teaches me things I can apply on the thornier problems, which involve trying to get down in images ideas which are abstract and which can be far easier for me to express in words or music.
Even to turn an abstract idea into an abstract image is to translate it, to make choices about shape, color, texture, and often the result is still a very personal expression that is useful in communicating something to myself, but not to others, as it requires further explanation in words. Because of this difficulty, explanatory words often end up in my work, at least in the title.
These two aspects, the visual and the spiritual, overlap, and as I labor over an etching or a series of monotypes, something may emerge that is more than the sum of the parts, becoming both a statement of a truth and something beautiful. I don’t by any means achieve this always, but I aim at it.
BRIEF RESUME
Selected Exhibitions
| 2007 | Tiny, Whitney Art Works, Portland, Maine |
| 2006 | Maine Printmakers 1980-2005, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, Maine |
| Prints by Members of Peregrine Press, Reed Gallery, University of Maine at Presque
Isle; then at The Saco Museum, Saco, Maine |
| 2005 | The Art of the Print, George Marshall Store Gallery, York, Maine |
| Creede Arts Council National Small Print Exhibition, Creede, Colorado |
| 2004 | Creede Arts Council National Small Print Exhibition, Creede, Colorado |
| Peregrine Press: In Small Print, Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, Maine |
| 2003 | Into the Garden, Chocolate Church Arts Center, Bath, Maine |
| 2002 | Peregrine Press Group Show, Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, Maine |
| 2001 | Peregrine Press: the Art of the Print, Lewis Gallery, Portland Public Library |
| 2000 | Prints by Members of Peregrine Press, Bates College, Lewiston, Maine |
| Prints by Kit Pike, Thomas Memorial Library, Cape Elizabeth, Maine |
| 1998 | Prints by Members of Peregrine Press, Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, Maine |
| Cities and Creatures, Barbara's Kitchen And Cafe, South Portland, Maine |
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Education
| University of Massachusetts at Amherst, BFA, 1976, also at Pratt Graphics Center in
Manhattan |
| Continuing Education at Philadelphia College of Art, Maine College of Art, and with Peter Halliday, Mark van Stone, Judith Allen, Peter Scott, David Wolfe |
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Other
| Scenic Artist for South Portland (Maine) High School musicals; 1998, 2000 – 2008 |
| Words & Images, 2004 edition and exhibit |
| Merit Award, Art in the Park (South Portland, Maine) 2001, 2006; Sponsor’s Choice Award 2006 |
| Semi-finalist, American Artist Emerging Artists Competition 1998 |
| Collection Bates College |
