Connor Kirk
It is not Dirty, it is Filthy, 2024
Oil pastel and charcoal on paper
30 x 20"

Artist Statement

This work draws inspiration from ancient Bantu "Garbage Event Rituals," in which performers would enact poetical "defenses" of trash. First, a large field would be covered in thick layers of village waste. Performers would then act out pre-written critiques and defenses of the contents in the field.

Sample defenses:
Critic: "This place is dirty."
Defense: "It is filthy."
Critic: " Why don't you clean it up?"
Defense: "We like it the way it is."

This work was made using discarded packing paper found on the side of the road as its starting point.
It is the sacred duty of the artist to defend the beauty of the world. When things are given no value, we reach down, pick them up, and recognize them as precious.

Artist Bio

Of my earliest childhood memories, one of the most vivid is, while playing with paper and pencil, accidentally drawing what I perceived to look like a little bird. The picture was absolutely simple, composed of one long curved line enclosed at the "beak." Yet it seemed to me like it might at any moment fly right off the page.
Since the drawing came about spontaneously, I immediately became taken with the idea of repeating/recreating it. I filled page after page attempting to capture the essential beauty and purity of that first "chance" drawing, but each attempt came up short.
Perhaps in some strange way, I've still been trying ever since.

In my early teens, I began to compose and perform music, eventually studying formally at Franklin & Marshall college where I received a Bachelors of Music in 2022.
It was there where I developed a deep fascination with the artistic avant-garde, discovering the works of artists like John Cage, Laurie Anderson, Duchamp, Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns. Artists who blurred the lines between artistic mediums and life itself.

Since graduating, I've continued my work as a multimedia artist, producing bodies of work such as the 2023 conceptual album/novella "The Burning of Hunger City" and a stream of visual works consisting of videos, photographs, drawings, paintings, and assemblages. In addition to this, I write consistent essays and poems exploring artistic philosophy for my Substack, the "On Fire Diaries."

My latest body of work, an installation entitled "Ten Invisible Drawings" premiered at Barshinger Center, Franklin & Marshall College on November 9th, 2024. Another showing at the college is already scheduled for early 2025.

connorkirkartist.com