ABOUT

My professional interest as an artist is to present the world as it is today, disrupted. Like the Hudson River School, which painted the landscape to highlight beauty and communicate its present state, I desire to paint a world that highlights the current conditions. In doing so, I challenge the viewer to decide what is important: escapism or reality. 

My artwork is a direct response to my lived experience. Having experienced the loss of my mother and father, I have seen the need to escape. I know I am not alone in this feeling. Yet, I continue to move forward. I gather references and research from my outdoor adventures; I want to understand the environments I create and then communicate that experience. I also want to do work that responds to current happenings in a way that entertains. I am fascinated by the ways we as individuals de-stress, substance abuse, digital consumption, and a turn to comedy and lightheartedness to cope.

In addition to the visual elements of my work, I enjoy working on paper because of its resilience and ability to record damage through its creases. I have also recently started to explore how digital and physical work can intertwine to create an image that lives between the tangible and the digital. I have been referring to this as digital mixed media. I have recently been exploring the way we interact with art on the gallery wall and its place in marketing work to sell as a product. There is a balance to production and communication in a painting that I want to explore further.

Drawing on my background as an Eagle Scout, I wish to explore the balance between nature and human intervention, revealing how these forces coexist, disrupt, and reshape one another. I alter the reality of the landscape by telling a narrative more on par with the stories a child tells a parent, even if that means inflating the truth. Through firsthand experiences and collective observations in our search for peace within a fractured landscape, I have chosen to let this guide my artistic practice.

Kyle is a visual artist currently based in Moscow, ID, where he is an MFA Candidate and Instructor of Record at the University of Idaho. Kyle's undergraduate experience is from Stanislaus State University in Turlock, California, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Science in Business Management.

Outside of the studio, Kyle is a contributor to the Scouting America program in a variety of roles and a dedicated outdoorsman. When he has free time, he enjoys any activity that gets him outside and uses those experiences as references and research for future works. 

He has displayed work in shows at the L.H. Horton Jr. Gallery, Stanislaus State University, and the University of Idaho. His work is in various private collections and is being shown across the internet on social media @KyleSilligmanStudios