kirah van sickle : bio
Kirah Van Sickle is a studio artist, art historian, and educator, offering with an academic foundation, experiential mindset, and love of visual storytelling beginning at the age of six. She received her undergraduate degree from Duke University, Master of Science in Medical Illustration from the Medical College of Georgia, and Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the Academy of Art University, in San Francisco. She managed her creative consulting company, Animania, for 18 years, before transitioning to higher ed.
Kirah's early representational, figurative style was rooted in traditional watercolor, acrylic and oil techniques, evolving through the years into semi-abstract and non-objective expressionism. She works and teaches a spectrum of traditional and contemporary, mixed media processes, working direct from nature (en plein air) and exercises in automatic drawing. These are deeply personal works, often inspired by dream imagery, memory, travel, offering a sense of place, the geological patterns and topography of sacred space, the marks of humanness.
In addition to her studio practice, Kirah is a dynamic lecturer and seasoned studio instructor leading custom courses regionally, and internationally. She offers mentoring for emerging artists, brings rich insight in materials, and traditional and contemporary processes. She is active in community arts programming, passionate about preservation of cultural and natural resources, and enhancing arts education.
Kirah divides her time between the Cape Fear Coast of North Carolina and Umbria, Italy. She is an adjunct instructor at the Cameron Art Museum, Cape Fear Community College and Johnston Community College.
Representation: Art in Bloom Gallery, Wilmington, NC