February Show at Nyack Library for Local Artist Ed Kirkland

The work of local artist Ed Kirkland is on display at the Nyack Library through the month of February. Opening reception is 1-3 p.m. on Sunday, February 7. The Nyack Library is at 59 South Broadway, Nyack NY. Kirkland, a well-known local artist, graduated from Nyack High School in 1972, later attending Pratt Institute studying art and computer animation.

His art explores and critiques current cultural and political environments in America from a uniquely African-American perspective. His parents, Edward and Lucille Kirkland, were both politically active in the civil rights movement and these values were a central theme through his early life in Harlem of the 1950s and later when the family moved to Rockland County. His social consciousness and a need for profound expression through art developed early – at the age of 5, Kirkland was already creating visual essays about morality. His recent work carries a message attuned to the current political climate.

Kirkland has worked at a variety of freelance jobs, and often sustained himself financially utilizing his design skills working for others, designing clothing and book jackets among other commercial projects. Since suffering kidney failure and receiving a life-giving transplant several years ago, Kirkland feels a new urgency to fully develop his own artistic expression. With obvious references to Basquiat, his multi-layered dreamscape canvases are personal and evocative – visceral experiences. Other more “folk art” collage assemblages utilize textiles and other found objects. Kirkland describes his work as, “a critical view of social, political, and cultural issues – slices of life moments – voyeurism when no one else is looking irony.”

Come and meet the artist on Sunday, February 7 at the Nyack Library reception 1-3 p.m., refreshments will be served. For more information please email [email protected].