An avid cyclist, Kevin was cycling to work to teach perspective to his drawing students when he and a truck collided. He was blocks away from the college he taught at.
Kevin Grass grew up in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, a small river town about an hour Southeast of St. Louis. Since there were no art supply stores nearby, his father, who worked as a grocery store clerk, brought brown paper bags home for him to use as drawing paper. Using No. 2 pencils and ball-point pens, he worked obsessively without instruction to master representational drawing skills.
In high school, Kevin created a wide variety of commissioned works, ranging from portraits and landscapes to lettering for campaign signs and car decorations. One of the murals he assisted within his town still exists today.
After becoming valedictorian of Ste. Genevieve High School, Kevin began his formal art education at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He started as an architecture student, but his obsession with painting was so strong that he changed his major. Kevin received his undergraduate degree in drawing and painting in 1990 from Washington University on a full academic scholarship.
At the University of Georgia, Kevin met his wife, Michaela Oberlaaender in a Northern Renaissance art class. Having an extensive impact on his life, that course introduced him to the narrative symbolism and the meticulous techniques of the Flemish masters that influenced his work.
Kevin began teaching art full-time at Gordon College in Georgia while also pursuing corporate art commissions and regional juried shows and had his first solo museum exhibition.
He then moved to Tampa Bay to teach at St. Petersburg College teaching full-time as an Associate Professor of Art.
Late in 2019, Kevin decided to work on using his art to make people smile and the Lame Ducks series was born. You can find out more here about Where Did the Ducks Come From?
