Kevin Cannon
b. 1948
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Originally from New York, the artist studied art and music at City College of New York before traveling in Europe, Spain and Morocco. He then worked with a group of craftsmen in New York where his continued exploration in leather as a material lead him to pursue harness-and-saddle in the early 1970’s and inspired him to head West.
It was in 1978 that Kevin Cannon found his way to Taos, New Mexico. There he developed an interest in ceramics while working as assistant to the renowned West Coast ceramist and printmaker, Ken Price. The hand-sewn leather objects he had been crafting became small box/objects beautifully made, with colored interiors and handles.
After moving to back New York City in 1983 the artist had several gallery shows of his small scale geometric "figures" made from molding wet leather around a wooden form. Finely crafted, the burnished and polished leather has the appearance of ceramics or wood, even bronze, and invites close scrutiny and wonder. During this time he was an NEA recipient and continued to exhibit the work in New York City, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago and Houston as the scale became larger and the surfaces more intriguing. In 1990 he returned to Taos where he now lives and works.
In 1996 independent curator Jan Adlmann included Kevin Cannon’s work in the show, "Contemporary Art In New Mexico", at SITE Santa Fe. Cannon’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Harwood Museum in Taos, and the Albuquerque Museum, to name a few.
Citation: http://www. www.artnet.com
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