ARTISTS > Richard Kirk Mills

BREAKING THROUGH by RK Mills
Oil on canvas
48" x 36"
2020
AN HOUR by RK Mills
Oil on jute
40" x 44"
2020
INSIDE (Getting Dark) by RK Mills
Oil on jute
44" x 40"
2021
STUDIO CHAIR by RK Mills
Oil on canvas
30" x 40"
2019
GREEN SCREEN by RK Mills
Oil on linen
40" x 35"
GREENSWARD by RK Mills
Oil on canvas
30" x 24"
2019
ORION, SHADOW by RK Mills
Oil on canvas
30" x 24"
SOUTH LIGHT / FIRST SNOW by RK Mills
Oil on canvas
36" x 24"
2019
Vesselby RK MILLS
Oil on raw canvas
16" x 16"
2020
SNOW SQUALL, BREAKING NEWS by RK Mills
Oil on canvas
24" x 24"
2020
RECTANGLES, SNOW by RK Mills
Oil on canvas
20" x 24"
2020
DEEP SNOW by RK Mills
Oil on canvas
36" x 36"
2020
SNOW SHADOW by RK Mills
Oil on canvas
48" x 48"
2020
Winter Lights
oil on linen
36"h x 34"w
2019
Sunlit Shade w/ Amaryllis and Paw Prints
oil on canvas
50"h x 38"w
2019
Thin Winter Light w/ Amaryllis
oil on linen
40"h x 30"w
2019
Earnest on the Lookout
oil on canvas
24" square
2019
Winter Firewood


2019
oil on canvas
40"h x 30"w
2019
Two Lights Amaryllis


2019
oil on canvas
24"h x 18"w
2019
Tarped Log Pile w/ Pines
oil on linen
24"h x 18"w
2019
From a Granite Shelf, Stonington
oil on canvas
36"h x 48"w
2019
Annisquam by RK Mills
Oil on linen
12" x 9"
Stonington Harbor
oil on panel
12"h x 16"w
2018
Night Lights in a Granite Quarry
oil on linen
30"h x 38"w
2019
Quarry Cottage (Stonington, ME)
oil on panel
16" square
2018
Brush Creek and the Little Delaware
oil on panel
23"h x 24"w
2016
Up Reinertsen Hill Rd
oil on canvas
24"h x 30"w
2018
Coreopsis and Studio
oil on linen
16"h x 20"w
2015
Echinacea
oil on linen
18"h x 24"w
2017
 Dusk
oil on linen
16"h x 20"w
2016

richardkirkmills.net/home.html
www.bluemountaingallery.org/richard-kir…

I work from observation of spatial situations that attract me formally and subconsciously. The poetry of place is of my own personal mythology, a longing for lost homes; a remembrance of water; of daydreaming through windows, of silence. Sometimes I hunt for a subject, occasionally making a pilgrimage, sometimes it’s just there, in front of me. Times of day, seasons, the moods of weather: all are shifting. So too does scale and texture; of supports and material; of past, present and future directions; of an unexpected dialog between works. Looking becomes meditation and a search for process. Most important are the associations brought to me by space and light.

My career as an artist has had several chapters. After painting in graduate school at City College of NY, I primarily devoted myself to printmaking between 1975 and 1995. I made monotypes, then screenprints, and later etchings, lithographs and handmade paper. Orion Editions, NYC copublished a number of editions. I was a master printer at Rose Hill Editions in NYC working with John Campione, printing editions for Sol Lewitt, Hans Haacke, Herb Aach, Robert Mangold, Walter Darby Bannard and others. I taught printmaking at the Pratt Graphics Center, was the first president of the Manhattan Graphics Center and directed the print and papermaking program for 28 years at the Long Island University/Post campus as Professor of art.

By 1996 until 2010 my work — influenced by garden making and a study of garden design and by my local environmental activism and contact with the Riverkeeper movement — shifted into ecoart, environmental art and public art projects. These major projects centered on work in damaged wetlands in the NJ Meadowlands. Artwork became highly collaborative involving scientists, naturalists, historians, artists, foundations, landscape architects, and government. My role primarily focused on public narrative strategies using research into environmental and cultural place histories, using collage, place making installations and education.

Since 2010 I have been painting full time.