About
Chris Kirby - artist (b.1948)
I was admitted to Kingston School of Art & Design in the mid 1960s, Art, photography, design & the written word have been an essential part of my life now for 60 odd years!!
Like many, drawing and painting really started at infant school, when we were all instinctive, unrestricted artists. It was a good feeling when school mates and teachers started to tell you "you're not bad at art." For me, going to art school was always a given. And, so it was that in 1965 I was admitted to the Kingston School of Art & Design. I was made up about it! But sadly, the experience didn't last long; living near Heathrow Airport the airline BEA, which was to become British Airways, offered me a management apprenticeship, with a salary and almost free international concession travel! It led to a 35 year career in the aviation world.
In the early 2000s I moved to the North Norfolk coast and became enchanted with the area. Upon Covid I decided to stop travelling and explore the delights of quiet living in Norfolk. This is when I began to pick up the paint brushes again and start making art! The Norfolk coastline is captivating; with its salt-marshes, its inlets and coastal villages. I was particularly drawn to the sea and the county's maritime history. With an emphasis on "still-life" painting, I'm drawn to painting the old wooden working boats, such as the crab boats, that plied their trade along the Norfolk and Suffolk coastline for hundreds of years. I always paint them as if at low tide (beached), when the lines of the hulls are exposed and when their shapes can be fully appreciated. I mostly paint them in groupings (which I call "huddles") whereby each boat leans at a drunken angle, gently rubbing against the other. I'm similarly drawn to painting pots and jugs (in the time-honoured still-life tradition), rock formations & even flocks of geese that I see in great numbers on Norfolk's inland fields.
Perhaps, from my early art background, I've always been interested in "shapes and forms" and how they work and juxtaposition together (be it people, natural or man-made objects). From my short period at art school when the minimalist colour-field painters such as Barnet Newman and Rothko were "all the rage," I've always been drawn to the modernist approach in art. In some small way, I like to think that i'm carrying on in the traditions of British Modernism.
I show my artwork mostly along the coastlines of Norfolk and Suffolk. In April 2026, I have be selected to open a solo exhibition of my "working boat paintings" at the Cromer Artspace (in Cromer, North Norfolk.)
I was admitted to Kingston School of Art & Design in the mid 1960s, Art, photography, design & the written word have been an essential part of my life now for 60 odd years!!
Like many, drawing and painting really started at infant school, when we were all instinctive, unrestricted artists. It was a good feeling when school mates and teachers started to tell you "you're not bad at art." For me, going to art school was always a given. And, so it was that in 1965 I was admitted to the Kingston School of Art & Design. I was made up about it! But sadly, the experience didn't last long; living near Heathrow Airport the airline BEA, which was to become British Airways, offered me a management apprenticeship, with a salary and almost free international concession travel! It led to a 35 year career in the aviation world.
In the early 2000s I moved to the North Norfolk coast and became enchanted with the area. Upon Covid I decided to stop travelling and explore the delights of quiet living in Norfolk. This is when I began to pick up the paint brushes again and start making art! The Norfolk coastline is captivating; with its salt-marshes, its inlets and coastal villages. I was particularly drawn to the sea and the county's maritime history. With an emphasis on "still-life" painting, I'm drawn to painting the old wooden working boats, such as the crab boats, that plied their trade along the Norfolk and Suffolk coastline for hundreds of years. I always paint them as if at low tide (beached), when the lines of the hulls are exposed and when their shapes can be fully appreciated. I mostly paint them in groupings (which I call "huddles") whereby each boat leans at a drunken angle, gently rubbing against the other. I'm similarly drawn to painting pots and jugs (in the time-honoured still-life tradition), rock formations & even flocks of geese that I see in great numbers on Norfolk's inland fields.
Perhaps, from my early art background, I've always been interested in "shapes and forms" and how they work and juxtaposition together (be it people, natural or man-made objects). From my short period at art school when the minimalist colour-field painters such as Barnet Newman and Rothko were "all the rage," I've always been drawn to the modernist approach in art. In some small way, I like to think that i'm carrying on in the traditions of British Modernism.
I show my artwork mostly along the coastlines of Norfolk and Suffolk. In April 2026, I have be selected to open a solo exhibition of my "working boat paintings" at the Cromer Artspace (in Cromer, North Norfolk.)