John Kiki
About The Artist
Whenever I start a painting I like to have an absolutely clear mind and no idea of what I am going to do, I prefer that, and then I start looking for a subject.
John Kiki exhibited at The Cut in July/September, 2012, and his work was included in the online only exhibition FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING which The Cut curated during the 2020/21 pandemic lockdowns.
YouTube video The Infantas
John Kiki was born in Cyprus, he trained in the 1960s at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, at the Royal Academy Schools of Arts and under the mentorship of Frank Auerbach, a painter he admires greatly. He relocated to East Anglia where he prefers painting on a large scale (5’x5’ paintings) in his studio in Great Yarmouth.
In his work he is extremely interested in the paint qualities and (like Bacon) by the idea of using chance and accident to create unique paintings often revisiting old work to improve them further. This for Kiki is more important than the subject matter.
Through the layering of paint, by scraping paint off and by cutting out large areas of canvas and sticking new canvas on the back, Kiki will not leave the painting alone until it has reached its full potential. This is what separates him apart from many other artists, he will not take the easy route but instead strive to break boundaries and make each painting as special as the next.
