Bear Kirkpatrick

Bear Kirkpatrick’s forbearers were an ad hoc mixture of adventurer-navigators, naturalists, whalers, Puritans, dissidents, judges, and witches. He was born in the American south to a mother raised in Brahmin Boston and to a Harvard-educated geologist father who, several days after Bear's birth, was sent across the world to war in the jungles of Southeast Asia. His upbringing was scattered across the Eastern seaboard, resting longest on a farm in New Hampshire during his teen years where he learned the survival skills of tracking, fishing, and hunting. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, the University of Michigan, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has made his living by turns as a stone-wall builder, roofer, mason's tender, bookkeeper, furniture builder, and video art installer.

Bear Kirkpatrick defines his imagery as evidence, documents of past and present human psychological states. He is presently working to develop a model to prove that acquired characteristics are not only inheritable as a result of natural selection and artificial selection, but also as the result of psychological selection as created by the environmental pressure of human memory.

This is not important.

Solo Exhibitions
2015
The Thought of Thinking, JDC Fine Art, San Diego, CA.
The Old Ones, Dan Cooney Fine Art, New York, NY.
The Human Diorama, 555 Gallery, Boston, MA
2014
Portraits, Center for Fine Art Photography, Ft. Collins, CO.
The Thought of Thinking, jdc Fine Art, San Diego, CA.


Group Exhibitions
2015
Seeing Connection, GuatePhoto Festival, Antigua, Guatemala. Juror: Rebecca Senf
Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, New York, NY.
Human Nature, Drift Gallery, Portsmouth, NH.
Lush Life, Lamont Gallery, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH.
Selected Works, photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.
2014
Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, New York, NY.
All the World’s a Stage, Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York, NY.
Ravishing, 555 Gallery, Boston, MA
Portraits 2014, Center for Fine Art Photography, Ft. Collins, CO. Juror: Amy Arbus
Critical Mass Top 50 Exhibition, Cordon Potts Gallery, San Francisco, CA & Houston Center for Photography.
2013
NEPR Showcase, PRC Gallery, Boston, MA.
Under My Skin, Flowers Gallery, New York, NY. Curator: Mona Kuhn
The Nude--Classical, Cultural, Contemporary, Photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.
Center Forward, Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco, CA. Jurors: Ann Jastrab and ...