Kirk Read

Kirk Read
Portland, Oregon, USA

STATEMENT

Like many collagists, I am drawn to vintage papers including industrial catalogues, youth science encyclopedias, children’s illustration, weathered telephone pole posters and the personal ephemera of strangers. As an analog collage artist, I co-lead the Pacific Northwest Collage Collective with Kellette Elliott and participate in frequent in-person collage meetups in the community, online and in my home studio. Writing, collage and public health nursing emerge from the core of my being – they come from my Southern upbringing, which drives me to forge connections with other people and to inhabit realms of memory and contemporary life that defy expected social scripts. I source my materials through the Goodwill Bins and on the street, as well as the potluck anarchy of what people in my life share with me. I start with a period of fussy cutting using tiny scissors. I accumulate the imagery in plastic bins, followed by bursts of intuitive composition with Yes paste, often on watercolor paper. My daily practice contains a low-stakes creative theater where I experiment with form and composition, often using scraps and fragments. I maintain a community cutting library in my studio, where I’ve categorized materials into groupings like “Schematics” and “Childhood Authority Figures.” I do a large amount of my creative practice with other people. My writing and collage assist one another to make the imagination more transparent.

BIO

Kirk Read is a writer, analog collage artist and performance artist. He is the author of How I Learned to Snap (Hill Street Press, Penguin/Putnam), a memoir which was an American Library Association Honor Book. He makes analog collage and lives in Portland, Oregon where he co-leads the Pacific Northwest Collage Collective with Kellette Elliott. He was shortlisted for the 2024 Contemporary Collage Magazine awards in two categories. His collage has been featured in Contemporary Collage Magazine and Khora, a project of Corporeal Writing, where he is a Curated Artist who illustrates short stories using analog collage. His collage has been shown by the Kolaj Institute at LeMieux Galleries in New Orleans, Powell’s Books in Portland, the Independent Publishers Resource Center and the Radical Faerie Arts Festival, which he helped produce. He was the founder and director of Army of Lovers, which produced over 300 arts events in San Francisco, including many collaborations with public health agencies. His theater shows This is the Thing and Computer Face earned him San Francisco Weekly’s designation as “The freak prince of San Francisco.” He has toured extensively as a writer and taught workshops all over the United States. He works as a registered nurse and is married to the writer Ed Wolf.

ARTIST CONTACT

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