Meet Kevin Ford

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kevin Ford. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kevin below.

Kevin , so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

This has been a question that I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about. I think like many people, when I started out, I began doing something that I had an aptitude for, that I was challenged by and felt fulfilled doing. After being out of school for some time it began to feel like I was making art out of habit or just because I had already invested so much time in doing it. At the same time, I had begun teaching and I had a certain natural aptitude for it, and of course teaching is a “noble” profession” and it can be quite rewarding when you make a real and measurable difference in a student’s life. This made me question what my purpose truly was. To borrow an Olympic analogy, it was hard for me to figure out whether I was meant to be Michael Phelps or if I was meant to be Michael Phelps’ coach. Each one is the best in their field and in any metric wildly successful, so how does one determine whether they are the subject or if they are meant to be the person who mentors the subject to reach their fullest potential? For me, it came down to looking really hard at what fulfills me, what sustains me, and what I felt was worthy of spending my time pursuing, and for me, that was making art. While I still teach, about a decade ago I made a conscious choice about how I personally identify, and that is as an artist who teaches, rather than a teacher who creates art on the side. It is a subtle, but important distinction.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am a painter living and working in Connecticut. My paintings explore the human experience of perception, by dissecting the different degrees that lie between the vision of the real object and its painted image. The residue of this act of looking is an economical combination of loose brushwork and hazy spraying. The subjects in my paintings are rendered as barely there–inhabiting space between a glance, observation, and memory. If you’re interested in seeing what that looks like for yourself, you can view images of some of my work on my website: kevinfordstudio.com and you can follow me on Instagram @kevinfordpainter. In 2025 I will be having a solo exhibition at Gallery 12.26 at their Los Angeles location. The work that will be in the show responds specifically to the Los Angeles landscape. I am also currently working on a book of my paintings and my studio practice, the release of which will coincide with a solo exhibition at March Gallery in New York in early 2026. Additionally, during the pandemic, I founded a socially distant outdoor exhibition space located on a deserted island in the Long Island Sound off the coast of my hometown in southwestern Connecticut called Fish Island Gallery. I have kept up programming the project and you can view our past and future exhibitions at fishislandgallery.com and on Instagram @fishislandgalleryct

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

There are a mixture of qualities and skills that have gone into my journey. First, I feel that I have identified making art as something that has held my interest through ups and downs over the course of many years. I seem to have an endless and genuine enthusiasm for art. My hope is that my enthusiasm for the subject is communicated through my work and how I engage in it. Second, I identified a place to study my chosen subject that gave me a comprehensive education in all aspects of my field, not just a narrow training in how to produce a specific object or replicate a specific technique. I had a wide ranging and rigorous art education in the Beaux Arts tradition, which was a rarity in this country at the time I was in school. My foundational training lasted for a full two years of coursework with most classes meeting for four hours a day, three times a week. For example, I was able to dive deeply into learning how to make a lithograph, sculpt a life-size figure out of clay and make a mold of it; I was able to take anatomical drawing courses; I learned how to prepare a true gessoed panel for painting and how to begin with a silverpoint drawing. I painted a fresco, ground my own oil paint, and mixed my own egg tempera paint. At the same time, I learned about all of the Art Historical context surrounding these techniques and modes of working. The result was a hard earned and comprehensive knowledge base that I was able to absorb and live in. Although I don’t make frescoes, sculpt the human figure, or make lithographs in my studio each day, this foundation of knowledge informs how I approach my work holistically, both as an artist and educator. The final thing that I have identified as a constant in my journey is curiosity. My curiosity inspires close observation, both inside and outside of my interest in art. I am constantly watching documentaries, listening to podcasts, buying books, and most importantly looking at things, trying to figure out how they are constructed, whether pieces of art or otherwise. In my studio I try to do everything, along with painting, I build my own painting supports, construct my own frames, mix my own paint, construct scale models for exhibition proposals. Doing all of these things creates a connection between my eyes, brain, and hands, so that my eyes and hands become extensions of my mind.

Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?

There have been a lot of people who have helped me along the way. I was fortunate to have a number of teachers early on who had a depth of knowledge and a talent for articulating and communicating their knowledge to students, and many of them possessed a generosity of spirit to take a personal interest in my success. One of my teachers who had an outsized influence on my journey was my teacher, John Walker. He was the head of the graduate painting program at Boston University when I was doing my undergraduate work there. During my senior year, he invited me to his home in Maine to paint in the landscape for a week with all of his grad students. This display of belief in me gave me the confidence to take myself and my art seriously. It also showed me that, in order to engage in making art in the way I wanted to, I would have to make it the central organizing principle of my life. Having a life in art guides all of the decisions that I make, from where I live and the type of car I drive (an SUV so that I can transport materials and my paintings), to the trips I take and the personal relationships I have. My wife, Kristen, who I’ve known for 35 years is another person who has had a considerable influence on me. She is way smarter and wiser than I am, and she has been a constant source of emotional, psychological, and financial support, which has enabled me to experiment in a number of modes of working throughout the years, even when those modes were not necessarily economically viable. My friend, Matt Ducklo, is another person who has had a profound effect on me and my work, first as a classmate and friend, then as a roommate when we moved to Brooklyn after school, and now as a frequent collaborator in staging exhibitions of my work at his gallery Tops, in Memphis, TN. Over the years, I have honed my thoughts about art and refined my taste in art through our late-night conversations about the subject. We have supported each other through the years and at a time when my confidence and belief were waning, he trusted me unequivocally and gave me a platform which reignited my love of making art.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kevinfordstudio.com https://www.fishislandgallery.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevinfordpainter/ https://www.instagram.com/fishislandgalleryct/