Kirby Kendrick paints from her heart, and her colorful art steals the show! Why? Her work is inspired, fresh, romantic, and painterly with interesting palettes that change drastically from one painting to the next. Her spirited brush-strokes are lively and engaging, and her passionate choices of subjects are so full of life. Whether she is painting florals or intimate interiors with compelling figures, New Mexican adobe churches, or her HEART THROBS series, she holds an audience.  

From her early Crayola drawings to her graduation from the New York Studio School in Greenwich Village, artist Kirby Kendrick has been on a journey filled with adventure. Twenty years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. While still hospitalized, an artist friend gave her a package of six Crayolas and a sketch book. She began drawings with this limited palette, inspired by the occasional flower and her doctor’s neckties!  It was then that she discovered a deep and abiding love of color and began a journey to become a painter.

Home again, Kendrick proceeded to unabashedly paint the walls of her Santa Fe adobe home in the patterns of Matisse. When her walls were covered, she moved on to canvas and came to study with such prestigious artists as Elias Rivera, Sam Scott and Tom Noble, finally going to New York city for three years of classical training with Graham Nickson.  

She has been widely represented by galleries and museums, garnered awards in international exhibitions, and is in the permanent collection of the San Diego Fine Art Museum Galleries. Today, Kirby Kendrick divides her time between her studios in Santa Fe and San Diego.  Five years ago she and Robert McLeod were married in Santa Fe with the wedding reception held at the most historically romantic and elegant spot town, La Posada! 

She is as thrilled to be represented at the Gallery Collection as we are to have her spectacular paintings.

KIRBY KENDRICK REMEMBERS: “I was fifty years old when I discovered art. It changed my life forever! Never before had I let my intuition take over. I unabashedly began to create art without fear or reservations, and because of that, I can honestly say that the past two decades have been the most stimulating of my life. Even in the middle of the night I awake energized with a creative blast, and I go with it! My artistic energy is tremendous, and it has been that way since I discovered that I, Kirby Kendrick, am really an artist!”