Kirk Tatom

   I still like to walk in the fields where I used to pitch bales of hay onto the wagons.  I still feel connected to the farm where I spent my summers.  Some of my attachment comes from the simple purposefulness of that land.  It’s wholesomeness beyond any aesthetic endeavor.  There is richness in land that you cannot stop from growing green that seduces me.  I still wander up those tractor ruts and stare into the quiet watering pond and feel the shade of huge oaks.  In painting, I try to capture that pace of life and give it denseness, a lushness that is reflective of my love of that countryside.

   During my years as a college student I traveled between Salt Lake City and my home in New Mexico.  I always paused at those few islands of pastoral grace along the way…surrounded by grand vistas, the humble, earnest, pioneer like fields huddled near small towns satisfied my aesthetic instinct.  I still take inspiration from the time I spend in Utah.  There is an atmosphere in its’ solitude that distills an image.  A pastoral leaning, that permeates the way I see Upper Michigan every August or view Oklahoma on the way to Missouri or even the way I view my day-to-day Santa Fe.


    So I have surrendered to a part of me that the city cannot contain.  I long for a rural home but content myself with starting a painting in the field and retaining the freedom I find there in my studio.  With each layer of paint with every brushstroke upon brushstroke with the paring back of texture, the sanding, the scraping, with tint here, a scratch there, I try to make permanent every footfall in those places of feeling…and hope for contentment."

   Born in Manhattan, Kansas, Tatom began his formal art training at the University of Utah from which he obtained a B.F.A. in 1972 on a full merit scholarship. From there, he studied at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1973 – 1976.

   Kirk Tatom was one of the foremost carvers of stone in Santa Fe for nearly 20 years. Tatom’s success in sculpture was his unique ability to create unquestionably original abstract avian forms. In 1997 he put down the chisel and picked up the paint brush. And he’s again become successful. He’s noted for painting the lush green fields and farms of this country. Tatom gravitates towards the rural where he often finds animals: cows, horses and sheep. In the beginning he strongly identified what he thought of as a “useful” landscape, rich with agricultural resources.

   Preparation of the panel requires just the right placing of texture exactly where it belongs. The surface may be sanded, scraped, polished, scored then washed, stained, and glazed, then comes the march of the elements of landscape; a boat, a vineyard, trees, animals. He often has as many as ten paintings in the works at one time. Unlike most painters he starts a group of paintings at one time and finishes them all at the same time.

   Just as Tatom pays great attention to the craft of his landscape paintings, he heightens their impact with exquisitely hand carved, gold leafed frames built by his father and brother.

EXHIBITIONS

Exhibiting since 1973, Tatom has an extensive show history, which includes the Denise Roberge Gallery, Palm Deserts, California, Harmon Meek Gallery, Naples, Florida, Sardella Fine Art, Aspen, Colorado, Carol Henderson Gallery, Fort Worth, Texas and the Jan Rice Gallery in Denver, Colorado.
2008 The Von Liebig Art Center, Naples, Florida

COLLECTIONS & COMMISSIONS
Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah.
City of Greenville, Greenville, Texas.
Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas.
Old Jail Art Center, Albany, Texas.
First Union Bank of Nashville, Nashville, Tennesee.
Staats International, Boston, Massachusetts.
Cal-Surance Associates, Inc., Torrence California.
Bruce Lindstrom, IAIA, Denver, Colorado.
James Seitz, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Sam Ballen, La Fonda Hotel, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Arndt and Associates, Tempe, Arizona.
Baptist Medical Center of Oklahoma, Inc., Oklahoma City.
St. Vincents Hospital, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
George Michael, California/ London.

AWARDS
Artist in Residence, Sitka Center, Otis Oregon.
Founders Series Recipient, 1993.

PUBLICATIONS
Focus (2002,001,2000, 1995,1988)
SFE, Summer/Fall 1989
Palm Springs Life, Oct. 1988
Designers West Magazine, August 1987
SFE, Summer/Fall 1987
“Reflections of the Southwest” calendar, Baptist Medical

Center, Oklahoma City

EDUCATION
1973-76 Kansas City Art Institute
1972 B.F.A., University of Utah, full-merit scholarship





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