The Fenton Arts Trust Artist in Residence 2005-06
Kevin Wells
Since the moment he could first crawl, found an old biro under the sofa and scribbled all over the front room walls, Kevin has been a compulsive doodler. The act of drawing itself, rather than the use of drawing to realise an image, has always sustained his work and is central to it now. Sketchbooks, carried everywhere with him and filled with scratched and scribbled figures drawn rapidly with biro, pencil, splattered ink or whatever comes to hand and inspired by a fascination with the theatre of human existence have also become integral in his practice.
During the last year of his fine art degree at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, Farnham Kevin extended his idiosyncratic drawing methodology into a fusion with monotone paintings made in parallel through free flowing abstract mark making using a variety of media. By responding to chance the paintings were developed through improvisation without a preconceived outcome in mind.
In June 2005 Kevin was awarded a first class honours degree in from the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, Farnham (now the University College for the Creative Arts) and as well as being awarded the 2005 Winsor & Newton Watts Gallery Prize. Kevin’s work was also chosen to be exhibited at the Metropole Galleries in Folkestone as part of the outstanding graduates’ exhibition.
During his year as the Fenton Arts Trust Artist in Residence at Watts Gallery, Kevin ran and helped develop workshops held both at the gallery and in the community with secondary school children, university students and community groups working in the areas of drawing practice, portraiture, caricature, experimental painting and use of sketchbooks.
Since his year at Watts Kevin has returned to run the occasional drawing based workshop and has also lectured on his work at the University College for the Creative Arts and worked on several commissions. He is currently working on developing an illustration portfolio.
