John
Kitses
Media:
Painting, Multi-Disciplinary
Studio Location:
Paint Can Studios, 10-10 44th Ave., Long Island City NY, 11101
Room/Studio#
303
Website:
Artist Bio:
John Kitses is a watercolor painter and printmaker. He graduated from Rice University in Houston, where he studied painting, printmaking, and 16mm animation. He then moved to New York City, where he has worked since in fine art silkscreen printing, photo retouching, publishing, and digital design. He lives in Jackson Heights, Queens.
In 2019 Kitses received a grant from the Queens Council on the Arts for “Recovered Landscapes: Newtown Creek,” a series of ten large-scale watercolor panoramas of an environmentally damaged industrial waterway. In 2023 he received a grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts to fund the production of “Last Days at the Iron Triangle,” a book of risograph prints of watercolors made at Willets Point. He recently published “Under the 7,” a book of views Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, and is currently working on a series of prints for a book of street life along of Queens Boulevard.
Artist Statement:
John Kitses makes risograph prints and books of plein air urban watercolors which he creates on-site in places that are overlooked or have hidden histories. His interest is light, space, and the impact of the built environment on people and the natural world. After exploring a location, he returns repeatedly to paint watercolors in the area. He then scans the paintings and digitally separates the images using custom risograph ink profiles. He adjusts the images to enhance the qualities of watercolor, and the colors and textures of risography. The images are printed in editions as books or as individual prints.
