30 Missions: Paintings by Roger Kirby

Using his father’s RAF log book as a guide, Roger Kirby traveled to each of the bombing target areas recorded there, looking for insight and inspiration. His artistic interpretations of his experiences resulted in the evocative exhibition, 30 Missions. The paintings are haunting, meditative, sometimes grotesque, and often strangely beautiful.

Kirby uses a variety of styles to portray his subjects. Commenting on his paintings for the exhibition catalogue, Newport Art Museum Curator Nancy Whipple Grinnell finds abstract expressionism “in the manipulated paint surface of streaks, swathes, and drips (2 Boulogne); rolls of hay that “swirl in a Van Gogh-like frenzy of gold, blue, and black streaks, transformed into giant propellers or cannons” (5 Flers); German Expressionist influences in “the bold jagged lines” of Kirby’s portrait of resistance fighter, priest, artist Jean Daligault (19 Caen).

In an essay for the exhibition catalogue, writer and artist Robert Shetterly, author of Americans Who Tell the Truth, writes: “Each painting is a necessary part of the whole; each one is in conversation with the others. They are meditations on war, time, culture past and present, transformation, nature; on the ability, or not, for humans to learn from their past behavior…We celebrate art like this because it offers us a chance to understand ourselves and the consequences of our behavior more deeply.”

Roger Kirby is a British artist who has lived and worked in the USA since 1993, dividing his time between coastal Maine and Newport, Rhode Island. Kirby is a graduate of Cardiff School of Art, Wales and Kingston University , London and his work is collected throughout Europe and North America. He is a member of the Art League of Rhode Island and the Union of Maine Visual Artists.

The exhibition is available for touring.
For more information on the exhibition and how your organization can host the show,
please contact Joanne Leese, joanne@30missions.com.

Contents: 30 framed paintings, text panels, labels.
Supplemental: Companion catalog.
Costs: A standard loan fee will be charged to host sites.
In addition, Roger Kirby is available to speak at an exhibition opening or other event.
All expenses and a modest honorarium will covered by the host site.
Space Requirements: The works measure 40” x 40” and all 30 must be shown for the duration of the exhibition.
Shipping: Each host venue will be expected to cover the cost of outgoing shipping in addition to the loan fee.
Crates: To be determined.
Security: Moderate to high.