3 DIMENSIONAL Luke Kite
Luke Kite had his first car – a Hillman Minx – when he was ten, his first motor-bike, a Honda 125cc trials bike, when he was thirteen.
Since he and his mum and dad live on Forestry Commission land he was able to learn his driving and riding skills off road and was an accomplished driver before he was in his teens.
Luke has been surrounded by metal of all kinds – car and bike spare parts, defunct mechanical bits and bobs and welding equipment – practically since birth and it is no surprise that this familiarity with automotive metal has provided the medium for his figures.
He doesn’t design his pieces, preferring to work from some rough idea in his head and then develop what he’s doing as he goes along. But his artistic flair comes out in them. The subject matter may be Gothic and many of the pieces from the dark side of his imagination – dragons, scorpions, bats, black Knights, battle stallions and so on but if you look at something like Luke’s ‘ Voodoo Woman and Dragon’ it is full of explosive energy and a flowing movement.
Firefly Maple Tree
However recently since discovering the remains of a fallen 100 year old oak tree he’s branched out into birds, moles, eagles, etc in fact anything from nature he observes around him including trees of all shapes and sizes.
The composition – done on the hoof as it were – is still imaginatively conceived and the artist’s vision translated into the filigreed and polished solidity of the finished piece sweeps the eye back and forth along the dramatic lines of the work. It’s an exciting creation and – irrespective of the subject matter and medium – a powerfully affective piece of art.