Patrick Kikut: Square States and Moonscapes

In the predawn of an October 2013 morning I witnessed a lunar eclipse as I drove down US 287 from Laramie, WY to Denver, CO. I watched as the moon turned from bronzy reds to bruised red violets. I was on my way to the Art and Environment (a+e) conference at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada. 

So, on the plane and in limbo, I made a drawing of the blood moon I had witnessed. At the conference I was intrigued when the a+e conference director, Bill Fox, stated that the Nevada Museum of Art had a wide definition of the West that included Australia and the Polar regions. With this more open thinking of the West, I became interested in placing images of the moon in context with the Western landscape images I have been producing for over 25 years. 

Was my little blood moon drawing a western landscape? In my work as a painter, I have always been drawn to remote and out of the way places. Many of these places have an “other worldly” quality that I try to capture in my paintings and drawings. The moon, like the wide-open spaces of the West, is remote, unpopulated and holds an enduring beauty and strength. - Patrick Kikut

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website