MICHAEL KIRK is an American artist who creates works on paper. Throughout his career he has explored the relationship between nature and the self, making graphite and charcoal drawings, watercolors, pastels and prints. His process begins with a practice of in situ drawing, small observational pieces created on site. These works embody a sense of place while capturing the artist's mood or feeling. Collectively they comprise a visual journal, using nature and environment as a source. What follows in his studio is a transformative process; one that goes beyond how something looks to the way it has come to live inside. By enlarging his plein air pieces the artist moves deeper into the work’s interiority. The resultant large-scale pieces possess the visceral quality of internalized landscapes.
His work is shown nationally and internationally and is in the collections of numerous museums as well as public and private collections. In addition to his career as an artist, Michael Kirk is a professor of printmaking at Parsons School of Design and at Pratt Institute. His home and studio are in New York City.