Kerri Quirk's story - as a person and an artist - is an exceptional one.
Kerri Quirk is an artist with a remarkable gift for color, design, and pattern. She works primarily in the acrylic medium, often on very large canvases. Her art is infused with magical threads, colors that ignite and daring perspectives. Kerri’s distinctive signature is a work of art in itself.
Kerri has been a working artist since 1988 and like most artists had very humble beginnings, working in a shared studio space in Mansfield, Connecticut. She is a person with autism who is deaf. Her art is truly her voice.
Kerri's work is not influenced by the conventions of the art world but instead seems at times to spring or gush directly from her soul. Often it appears that Kerri feels the need to harness a specific image or make some exotic sense of the colors she sees in the world around her.
At times she works quickly with dots and dashes to create canvasses that seem to shimmer. During one period in the late '90s Kerri produced art very slowly, adding layer after layer of color creating very rich, dense paintings.
Friends and family have tried to influence Kerri’s choice of subject or medium, but generally she selects the subjects that interest her. She often creates multiple works on a common subject.
Art world insiders instantly recognize Kerri's work. She has become a favorite of collectors, critics, and curators. Kerri's work is consistently featured in Chicago and New York Outsider Art Fairs. The recipient of numerous awards, Kerri was chosen by the Connecticut Very Special Arts Council to present one of her paintings to Senator Christopher J. Dodd.
Kerri’s paintings have been exhibited at galleries and art exhibitions throughout Connecticut, as well as Boston, New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Her work has been featured in art brochures, calendars, concert tickets and book covers.
Outsider Art is synonymous with “Art Brut,” French for “raw art,” referring to art that has not been “cooked” by the traditional art world of schools, galleries and museums. Instead, it is art that is pure and unaffected by concerns with competition, fame or financial reward. No one influences Kerri’s art. It is the result of her own brilliance.
Kerri opened her new gallery and studio in Willimantic in May 2010, which serves as an inspiration for the expanding art world in Eastern Connecticut. Here Kerri paints five days a week in a restored 1890 Main Street storefront. Artist Tom Menard and the non-profit agency Horizons empower Kerri to share her sharper view of reality.
