Description:

The Mesozoic Era is designated as the third era of geologic time and it was also the most successful rein on Earth lasting some 180 million years, from 245 until 65 million years ago. The Mesozoic Era includes the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and is characterized by the predominance of reptilian life forms. 

Education:

Kevin Wakefield was born in Rome, New York in 1964. He received a BFA in illustration Advertising, Design and Production in 1986 at Syracuse University. He taught Visual Communications at Mohawk Valley Community College as well as Life Drawing and Graphic Design at B.O.C.E.S. Vocational School.

Introduction: by James Fletcher

Kevin Wakefield's highly detailed paintings bring to surface a memory of hot feted swamps and lush landscapes inhabited by creatures we are used to seeing in science textbooks and blockbuster movies. Yet it all seems more real than that. These images are strangely familiar from a frame of reference we are not consciously aware of.

Deep inside the head, the tabula rasa stirs. Moving silently below the surface, this primordial memory contains an imprint of the whole of evolution. It is tied to the collective consciousness we all share, a recollection of the prehistoric origin of life itself.

Wakefield's visions are more than pure subject matter however. His superb sense of color, line, shading and texture make these dreamscapes come alive with an impact that is at once foreign and familiar. One feels as if he could reach into these scenes and touch them, hear them, taste them. Fear is replaced with tender fascination as we witness enormous beings interacting with their environments.

Sometimes playful, always rich in colorful detail, Wakefield's paintings are something to behold on a grand scale, rendered as immense in size as their prehistoric subjects... a delight to behold from any perspective including that of our ancestral memory.

Partial List of Exhibitions:

1998 A.N.E.W. Foundation For The Arts, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

1997 Coplan Gallery, Boca Raton, Florida

1997 Graves Museum of Archaeology and Natural History, Dania, Florida.

1997 A.N.E.W. Foundation For The Arts, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

1995-96 Good Planet Café, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

1995 Bash, South Beach Miami, Florida.

1992 Government Center, Fort Lauderdale.

1991 Artist Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia