Steve Kirby

A largely self taught artist, my drawing work explores the rhythms and cadences of landscape, stripping it down to its barest component, the straight line. This approach takes its cue from the hatching of lines, in old prints and technical drawings during my time in engineering. At first they formed the background to my drawings. The more I drew the more the lines grew until they gained their own prominence and took up the whole picture.

I have been a full time visual artist and writer since June 2005, working in a variety of techniques from hand-drawing to digital, involving line, word and number, mainly on paper. Previously, I contributed to art events while working in a variety of jobs from porter to quality engineer. I live and work in Edinburgh.

Although i have done a few art courses here and there (see below), just as formative is my father teaching me at the age of four, to draw a horse with the aid of a penny and a sixpence. Indeed the meditative aspects of laying down repeated lines hearken back to those earliest times, when I’m sure I felt the pencil under my fingers and watched the line it produced as keenly as I do now.

COURSES

2012 Dressmaking, Leith Academy, Edinburgh
2011 Japanese Art, Design and Visual Culture, Office of Lifelong Learning, Edinburgh University
2010 Japanese Textiles, Office of Lifelong Learning, Edinburgh University
2008 Etching, Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop
2007 Photopolymer & Solar Plate Etching, Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop

SOLO SHOWS
2007 I ♥ the 18th century’, Amber Arts, Edinburgh

GROUP SHOWS
2012 Callum MacDonald Poetry Pamphlet competition, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

2011 The 3rd Sheffield International Artist Book Prize, Bank Street Arts, Sheffield
2011 Herring Road Exhibition, Peter Potter Gallery, Haddington
2011 Callum MacDonald Poetry Pamphlet competition

2010 The Embassy Salon, Edinburgh
2010 Callum MacDonald Poetry Pamphlet competition, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh
2010 Picadilly Self Publishing Exhibition, Manchester

2009 Royal Scottish Academy Spring Open Exhibition, Edinburgh
2009 DACS - ‘New to DACS’, London

2008 RSW SSA VAS Exhibition of Small Artworks, Edinburgh
2008 117th Society of Scottish Artists Annual Exhibition, Edinburgh
2008 Ferreira Projects PURE drawing + illustration, London

2007 The Embassy Open, Edinburgh
2007 181st Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition, Edinburgh
2007 Cramond Island Art Festival (TotalKunst), Edinburgh
2007 116th Society of Scottish Artists Annual Exhibition, Edinburgh

2006 Che Camille opening show, Glasgow
2006 Underdog, Dundas St. Gallery, Edinburgh