Kevin Xiques: This Is For You

Kevin Xiques creates lyrical, multi-layered abstract paintings that dance with the marks of his brush. A self-taught artist, he approaches the canvas intuitively, responding to his emotions and guided by the painting process. His palette ranges from delicate veils of pinks, corals, and light blue to intense hues of cobalt, ultramarine, khaki green, and signal orange. Using a variety of brushes and mark-making tools, his lively surfaces bear evidence of his hand. Composed of differently textured lines and shapes that weave and intertwine with deliberate splashes and drips, sweeping strokes, and shuddering fans of color. In several recent works, patches of the canvas are left bare, and shapes extend past the edges. Xiques, who lives in Portland, Maine, began painting in December 2020 and is now completely immersed in his practice. It is a language he feels at home in and finds liberating. He says, “My paintings are the manifestation of the freedom I have gained, and the freedom I am hoping every individual will come to realize.”

Xiques received a BA in Philosophy with a Film and Television Studies minor from the University of Vermont. He was awarded a David C. Driskell Fellowship and Black Seed Studio Residency at Indigo Arts Alliance and a SPACE Gallery Studio Grant in Portland, Maine. In 2022, he was selected as one of eighteen Maine artists to watch by Maine Magazine.