ABOUT KENNETH STARR

Born March 16 1958 in the city of Patterson New Jersey :My humble beginnings in the art world were truly that. I used to doodle on my notebooks covers and one day a cable company in Shelby N.C had a contest “What Will They Find On The Moon” (1968), my mom had me enter in the contest so on a piece of notebook paper I drew mountains,craters and rocks. I won first place for my age group. This encouraged me to take art a little more seriously, so I started drawing everything I could think of. In high school, a young artist named Nes Lavotch saw some of my art work at a spring art show and took me under his wing. I worked on several projects with him including a mural at a history museum in Shelby N.C ….. We never finished it because they wanted all black people in the fields picking cotton and couldn't except the changes we had made.

After this, I got involved in my high school art class; I won a summer session scholarship to the N.C. School for the Performing arts, where I studied visual arts and stage design and production for three months. After going back to high school I fell away from art and for the next twenty-five years I got high, I did little or no artwork during this time. Then in 1998 I moved to LaGrange Ga. I couldn't find a job so to keep my spirits up my mother gave me a acrylic paint set and and three canvases. During this time I painted over thirty works and my mom became my inspiration to paint again. Since then, my love for art continues to grow. I have started to work with different mediums and new styles of creating art. I am truly into my blackness and as I learn more about me,(I've been clean now for eleven years) I learn about my people giving me so much inspiration to create. I am truly a “NEW AGE BLACK ARTIST” even at fifty plus years, I hope my art remains young and inspiring and that the demand for black art continues to grow.