Kevin Fey
Undergraduate
Cooper Union School of Art
New York, N.Y.
KevinFey@gmail.com

Artist's Statement:

My goal is to create and develop a language for the purpose of synthesizing spatial and non-spatial art objects.

My work, though varied in its final aesthetic, is rooted in the conceptual framework of Abstract Expressionism.

I find my practice is grounded in, but not limited by, the investigation of techniques and pursuit of various surfaces, marks and desires.

In creating a painting, I strive to merge paint and action, while my formalist works are inspired by the exploration of color and transparency.

These paintings are found first in the parts that constitute them. The interaction between the accidental and controlled, between brushed and poured, all of these are the tools I use to work with paint to form an aesthetic whole. 

I believe a painting is only completed in relation to itself; therefore my paintings never begin with a clear vision of how they will be finished. Instead they are in a constant state of adapting to themselves.

Artist's Bio:
The artist is from Binghampton, N.Y. He is scheduled to graduate with a BFA in studio art in 2008. His work was included in the exhibition "When Artists Say We" at Artist's Space in New York City in 2006.

About Cooper Union:

Cooper Union’s School of Art's academic program offers students flexibility in developing their creative abilities and career potential. Its generalist curriculum is based on the belief that creative development thrives most in an interdisciplinary environment. Boundaries that once separated arts disciplines have faded. Artists need to be well prepared in more than one field. The School of Art does not require declared majors or minors, or lockstep sequences of prerequisite courses.

The BFA program provides both a general visual arts education and a focused preparation for future artists and designers. The goal is to educate students in the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary for a competent and responsible practice in art and design-related fields, not to prepare them for a specific job immediately following graduation.

The program intends to develop the students' creative potential, to make them versatile, resourceful and reflective, and to equip them to deal successfully with the practical problems and issues of today and those of the future. Students are taught to become socially aware; creative practitioners and historically grounded, perceptive and critical analysts of the world of contemporary communications, art and the culture at large.

The Art History and General Studies components of the BFA program, like the Studio component, have as their goal the acquisition of communication skills, the development of critical perspectives and the mastery of the materials and intellectual premises of the study of societies and people.

More than two-thirds of a student's time is spent in studio courses. The School of Art offers state-of-the-art facilities. They include painting studios, sculpture and printmaking shops, photography studios and darkrooms, film and video facilities, and a computer studio. In addition, the Center for Design and Typography enables students to work in guided classroom situations with clients, and they can conduct research in the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design & Typography, an archive of seminal works in graphic design.