There’s an uncanniness to Kit King’s portraits. Reminding us of photographs more than anything else, her hyperrealistic paintings might alarm you at first with their incredible level of detail. Even more incredible is the fact that King hasn’t received any formal training through art school.
“I’m sure you can learn a ton from art school,” she relayed in an interview with Jung Katz, “but it depends on what you want to take from art, and where you want to go with it that should determine whether or not it’s for you. For me, I couldn’t imagine being ‘taught’ art. It’s one of the only free things in this world and I’ve personally gained so much from having the artistic process be 100% my own journey, untainted from outside influence.”
But with both her parents being artists, you could argue that she didn’t have much of a choice. “Art is life,” she puts it, simply. “Art is my breath, my escape, my happy place. Art is my own safe haven in a hectic world. It’s where I go to hide from it all, and is also where I go to enjoy it all.”
Judging by her massive online following (that includes more than 345k fans on Instagram), other people are enjoying her paintings just as well. She has also won several awards for it, and her work is kept in both private and public collections worldwide including the MET’s publication collection. It’s also exhibited worldwide, in galleries and museums.
