Artist of the Week – Kevin Townsend | Hong Kong Art Tutoring

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Artist of the Week – Kevin Townsend. Fine Artist

Artist of the Week – Kevin Townsend

Posted on November 28, 2015 · Posted in Artist of the Week

Wells of Mimir 11

Townsend’s work has a calming simplicity. His rustic and undemanding choice, use and combination of materials creates a determined presence in his pieces. Townsend’s works are quiet and certainly not over engineered, yet they compel thought and curiosity.

Works printed by Townsend have been collected by the MoMA and the Whitney; his personal work has been exhibited in the Corcoran Gallery and the Chelsea Museum and can be found in private collections including the White House Ornament Collection. Kevin holds a BFA from Corcoran College of Art and Design.

In his own words

Wells of Mimir V

Could you please introduce yourself and tell us what motivated you to become an Artist? When did you realize you would pursue a life in Art?
My name is Kevin Townsend. I am a 38 year old husband and father of two, living and working in Boston. I’m an artist. I’m an educator. I make. I teach. My studio practice and my work as a teacher are not defined by an exhibition or an institution, they are demanded by my personality. For me, Artist and Educator are not simply professional titles, they are world views— which at their core require framing, distilling, condensing and establishing contexts for ideas, information, and abstract concepts in order to engage an audience in dialogue. These mindsets do not dissipate when I leave the classroom or the studio, they persist through every facet of my life, unified by their dependence upon synthesis, seeking evidence of growth through process, that yields product.

We Run Ourselves Aground 1
temporary drawing / projection (Boston 2014)

I think I was drawn to making Art around 6th grade; for me Art became a means of escape, a way of coping with situations beyond my control. The processes of making provided me with a structure within which I could shelter from the ‘real world’ for a bit, but I wasn’t convinced that Art would be THE THING I would pursue in my life until it came time to think about college. As I considered colleges and potential majors I realized that in every case I was looking to make sure they had an art program— Art was the constant in my thoughts for my future. It was then that I made the leap and committed to this life, at age 18.

What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever created and why? What makes one piece successful over another?
I think that, more than any single piece of work, the thing that I have made that I am most satisfied with is my process— the ways in which I seek to engage ideas or issues, the research, the material exploration and the process of distillation and condensation that any body of work goes through is where I find my satisfaction. I am often unhappy with some aspect of individual works, but I trust in the cyclical nature of my process to bring me closer to my goals with each endeavour.

What artists and influences have driven your work and why?
Here is a short list of people whom I find influential—

ANTONIN ARTAUD — I find his words and thoughts always stir me
JOHN GRADE — for the way he uses time, scale and material poetics in his works
RICHARD LONG — for the way he transform actions into drawings
OLAFUR ELIASSON — for his continual faith in Art’s ability to transform and illuminate
FELIX GONZALES TORRES — for the way he poured himself and his personal relationship to time into his work in a way that also valued and involved the viewer
HIROSHI SUGIMOTO — for the way he has condensed and focused his interests and passions; I find comfort in his obsessiveness
SINICHI MARUYAMA — for the way he thinks about drawing as an action that takes place through space and time, and the way he documents his work
RICHARD SERRA — for the way he uses scale and materials— for the way I felt standing inside of his works

Salted Earth
detail view 1

What elements of your work do you find most challenging?
I often find it difficult to objectively examine my own work and to see it for what it is rather than what it isn’t. I am quick to see the shortcomings of a given work and it is often only after a longer period of time that I can look back on a work and understand its merits.

What’s next for you?
For the last year, I’ve been working in a very narrow band of thoughts regarding time and memory, that have been condensed, simplified, depersonalized and abstracted too far (I think). Next for me is to work towards being less generic with my efforts, engaging more performative drawing works and installations.

Boston-based artist, Townsend, is a former master printer for Hand Print Workshop International. In addition he has taught at Corcoran College of Art & Design, Maine College of Art as well as Montserrat and MassArt.