Collection: Kevin Barton

Over the past almost twenty years, Kevin Barton of Petoskey has become one of Northern Michigan’s most well-collected artists with paintings hanging in collections across the nation.  In addition to winning numerous awards and accolades, including the Manoogian Museum’s Gold Medal Award, Signature Member status with the American Impressionist Society, and Best of Show at the Crooked Tree Arts Center annual paint-out in 2014, Mr. Barton’s work has also been featured or chosen for many covers and posters for known events Mackinac Island’s Lilac Festival poster contest two consecutive years.

Barton is glad to reside in northern Michigan with its wealth of subject matter befitting his tastes and talents with painting.  From the Great Lakes with its boats to its diverse architecture, gardens, townscapes and sunsets, it provides endless opportunities for new compositions.  Driving a little inland, there is an array of fields and farms to make the many varied pastoral scenes he has so enjoyed painting.  His painting has also taken him to places like Sedona, California, Chicago, New York City (with a group show at the prestigious Amsterdam Whitney Gallery) and most recently to Key West and other Florida locales.

In Michigan he frequently travels and paints on Mackinac Island as well as to the Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsulas.  These new and different locations have increased the range in his body of work and his intuitive sense for capturing the subtle qualities of differing light.  

In 2016, as part of recognizing the 20th anniversary of his career as a full-time artist, the Crooked Tree Arts Center hosted a retrospective in the Ermy B. and Gordon B. Bonfield Gallery  entitled “Lost to the Wind.”  The show encompassed paintings spanning all twenty years and highlighed different areas and aspects of the artist’s progress with short stories accompanying many of the paintings relating either to the creation of the paintings or insights into the creative process at the time.