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Ken Faulks  

Biography

 

Ken Faulks was born in Victoria BC in 1964 and grew up in View Royal, on the Portage inlet. Faulks has been interested in drawing and design from an early age and begun freelancing as a visual artist in 1983. He has produced work for illustration and design projects, his work encompasses murals, logos, illustrated posters, cards, book covers, children’s books, cartoon characters, technical drawings, product illustration, and website design. In 1989, Ken began painting “en plein air” employing the methods and media used by the Group of Seven; oil paint on small wood panels. Highly portable and durable, these enable the artist to work in the field with relative ease. Although he frequently takes these small pieces into the studio and translates them into immersive larger works, the “en plein air” technique has become Faulks’ greatest strength. He has captured the grand skies, log strewn beaches and other striking landscapes from around southern Vancouver Island in a series of paintings filled with lush brushstrokes, a vibrant bold palette and a keen compositional sense. Faulks reminds us that his love of landscape has to be transposed into something that is both physical and engaging. “When you come away from painting outdoors, what do you have? Not mountains and rivers, but paint. The paint has to be visually interesting, the paint becomes the subject. I love paint.” Faulks uses impasto to give his paintings a thick buttery surface, a visual candy that pulls you in and provides a new level of interest. The surface of his canvases are activated and seem to undulate with the thick oil paint colours often mixed right on the surface of the canvas while being applied. The impasto brushstrokes provide the energy and a direction of movement. Impasto is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface very thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting knife strokes are visible, complete with highlights and shadows. When dry, impasto provides texture, the paint appears to be coming out of the canvas like a low relief sculpture.

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Ken has been exhibiting in galleries since 1989, having both group, and solo shows, his work can be found in private and corporate

collections around the world.

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artwork>>

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