Dan Kirchoff

I’ve always seen fine art as the ultimate challenge, the challenge of meeting my own high bar of achievement. Is it good enough to paint an apple, or is it better to create a new way to see apples? How about with portraiture? Sure, we can all draw someone from the classic three-quarter view, but what about showing an individual from a different angle? How about a surprise, as in a lock of hair drifting down in front of one of the subject’s eyes? These are the kind of questions I ask while working. Realism is what I strive for, depicting an object‘s details exactly as they appear, but at the same time, I love to see the artist‘s hand at work. This is evident in a brush stroke or scribble of a pen — you can see that the piece has been hand-drawn or painted — clearly not a photograph. I work in pen-and-ink and acrylics on paper and I hope you like what you see. — Dan Kirchoff