8x8 hand painted paper collage, framed
 
This series of collage with hand painted paper was created for her show, A Coming Together, about which Kirk says, “I find it necessary to take a step back from the masks of digital slickness, sound bites, and romanticism of the world to experience the elegance in roughness, decay, and renewal. It is a coming full circle; two themes: wholeness and continuity. The circle: how we break up the whole in an effort to create the illusion of a unique, separate identity when we are actually interconnected elements of one. We are allowing ourselves to be divided into political, religious, ethnic, sexual preference, and age groups. The Earth needs a concerted effort if we are to thrive. The Layering: that gives us a sense of time, history; a connection to the ancestors. Through humble materials; found pieces of wood, rusty metal, stories appear to me in elegant ways.”
 
The resounding sentiment is that we are all one. Nancy Kirk is basically a magician of an artist with limitless powers. Each one of her many series in varied mediums and styles informs the next, on and on into infinity. Photography, block printing, mural painting, assemblage, digital illustration, oil, acrylic, casein and so on, are all in her back pocket. Like many artists who have been at it for decades, Kirk’s work may appear to come easily, but is actually a result of enormous practice and training. She has found her voice and happens to have huge range. This show focuses on her love affair with shapes and how they relate and interact.
 
Kirk grew up in the Bay Area, wandering the surrounding hills and spending summers in the Sierras near Yosemite. Her studies reach from The California College of Arts and Crafts to the opera in Florence, Italy to the Parsons School of Design. She has worked as a scenic painter for opera and ballet, illustrator, painter, and muralist, assisted art conservators in the restoration of historic Broadway theater murals and has original work on the Golden Theater on 45th Street in New York City.