Using the convention of portraiture as framework, Kevin Auzenne creates stark and original works illustrating the avatars populating his ever-expanding secret-society of characters. Mark-making is at the heart of Auzenne’s practice, shown by his deep admiration for Japanese calligraphy, surrealist methodologies and loose narrative structures; he uses the single physical gesture to bridge the abstract with the figurative. In such pieces, these initial, random marks illuminate his visual language; a syntax informed by pop culture, history, human psychology as well as his own background as a black artist with French-Creole roots.

Kevin Auzenne was born in 1971 in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan and raised in Tallahassee, Florida. He studied film and photography both at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Florida State University School of Motion Picture and Recording Arts.

He spent his formative creative years in Brooklyn, NY, moving to the borough in 1996 and working as a scenic carpenter while also freelancing within the film, television and art worlds. That exposure would come to help solidify the artist’s style and approach, giving him a profound engagement with fellow artists, processes and materials. Sharing studios as live-work environments alongside other artists enabled him to freely explore the boundaries of the creative process, indulging in the production of everything from music to film to photography all in the same space.

In 2014, Auzenne moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to be closer to family and to practice creating work outside of the dynamic environment of New York.

Auzenne’s work has been exhibited in galleries throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn and The Bronx, and has been collected in numerous private collections throughout the United States.

The artist lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio.