Kyle Stuckey is an American realist painter who began studying art during his high school years simply because he needed an art credit to graduate. He then fell in love with art as he studied masters like Sargent and Waterhouse, took workshops from today’s masters, and became a member of the Putney Painters learning alongside some of the greatest artists today. Over the following decade, he continued to work with oil and develop and refine his impressionistic realism style. Today he enjoys painting an array of subject matter: people, places, and things.
Kyle has spent much time traveling around the world, painting as he goes. Originally from New Hampshire, Kyle has also spent time in Asia, Europe, Central America, and the U.S. west coast. Now he is living in Charleston, SC.
Although most of his travel has been on hold during the pandemic, Stuckey says that even something like a weekend trip into North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains is enough to kick his “art brain” into high gear. “For me, just seeing new places and things is inspiring, whether it’s extremely different or just a slight variation from the everyday,” he says.
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That doesn’t mean he deliberately sets out to find subjects. In fact, he tries not to try. He just sets out. Then, as he meanders through an older section of Charleston or along a beach, or sits in a restaurant with his wife, painting ideas tend to show up. One recent rediscovery has been a series of tonal works. Applying only two colors—one warm, one cool, no white—Stuckey paints familiar subjects in a way that takes him “back to the basics of drawing and using values to create form. It’s fun to explore that,” he says. Yet even as he dips into this more simplified approach, he brings with him years of training and experience. “I’m finding new ways to keep it fresh and move forward,” he says. “I’m pushing boundaries while producing what is still clearly a Kyle Stuckey body of work.”