About Santa Fe

Artist Statement
My work celebrates the delicate nature of paper in museum quality metal. I began my career as a papermaker, printmaker and graphic designer. The passion I have for paper, the ideas, philosophy and history it has captured for centuries, continued with me when I transitioned into sculpture. How to capture those qualities in sculptural form presented a challenge. While most of my peers were sculpting in clay and casting it into dark, heavy metal objects, I was inspired to do something different. By experimenting directly with paper and wax and working in a lost wax foundry for several years, I developed an “organic burnout” process specifically for paper that captures all of its intimate details. The technique took me two years of tireless experimentation to develop and seven years to perfect. In the beginning, I had to do every exhausting step of the process on every piece.

Today, I still begin every piece with a blank sheet of paper and manage it through the 35-step, 12-week process of casting with the help of fine art foundry teams. Pieces are cast in bronze, aluminum or stainless steel depending on the design requirements. Bronze for its ability to capture detail, aluminum for its light weight, and stainless steel for its strength. The results are unique or limited edition castings, forged by hand and completed with finishes that return it to the look of the original paper.

Many of the works are designed to withstand the outdoors, the test of time, as well as fingertips. Please touch; I invite you to explore the work in its physical form. Be touched; I invite you to discover the meaning of the work, the stories and ideas beneath its surface.

Origami, paper planes, crumpled ideas and innovative abstraction are all themes that inform the surface of my work. Every piece has a title, a reason, and a purpose in contributing to the story I am telling beneath the surface. Motivating the content of the work are my concepts of truth, my philosophy of chaos and consciousness, creation and evolution, the process of creativity and our relationships and responsibilities to one another.

Kevin Box was conceived in New Mexico, born in Pennsylvania, grew up in Oklahoma and received his higher education in Georgia, New York City and Texas. He now resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife Jennifer. As a boy he lived in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, beneath “the tree that escaped the crowded forest,” Frank Lloyd Wright’s only built skyscraper. Throughout high school Box studied graphic arts and apprenticed summers at an Uncles design firm in Atlanta Georgia. It was in there that Box’s passion for creativity was developed, where he formed his relationship with design and with paper.

Box received a four year scholarship to study graphic design at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Following his junior year, an Art History grant took him to Greece for three weeks, providing him the opportunity to see some of the great antiquities of the world first hand. The experience forever changed him, “I realized that all of my graphic design work was ending up in the landfill as trash and I discovered the durability of the conversation that continues through the history of art and I wanted to be a part of that.”

Box pursued this new passion by changing his major to fine art. He focused on sculpture and art in public places because in his mind “printmaking didn’t fit the challenge.” After graduating with a BFA, he left paper behind and began working in an Atlanta foundry but quickly realized there were more foundries to learn from in Austin, TX. For three years he labored under a self-imposed apprenticeship to become proficient in metal casting. By working in the foundries, he attained an exhaustive knowledge of the casting techniques and fabricating processes necessary to create durable works of art. The artists he worked for mentored him through his exploration of style as well as the business of art. Eventually his dedication helped him manage and build one of the largest fine art foundries in Texas and Box used that opportunity to develop his own voice. “The best thing I ever did was to trade a raise in pay for casting rights in the foundry. I moved to the smallest town I had ever lived in to be closer to the shop and worked there from dawn till dusk. ”

That decision afforded him the freedom of experimentation. Ignited with inspiration, a full service studio to work in and a treasure trove of paper found in the warehouse of an old print shop the foundry was renting, he started working with paper again. “It took two years of tireless experimentation for me to develop the process of casting paper into bronze, another seven years to perfect, and it continues to evolve today.”

From the beginning, Box’s work received recognition from other artists and collectors alike. His unique style married paper with the age old tradition of bronze casting and refreshed audiences. In 2004, he was elected as the youngest member of the National Sculptors Guild and was recognized by Southwest Art Magazine as one of the top 21 artists under 31 in the southwest. Box exhibited throughout the country on a vigorous schedule of festival shows that provided him with valuable feedback and direct communication to thousands of connoisseurs and collectors. He discovered the art markets of the country and professional galleries that wanted exclusive representation of his work. He continued pursuing art in public places throughout the country and in 2006, moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Box continues to push the boundaries of the casting process. His unique style and approach, combined with an innovative vision like no other, contributes to his aspiration of place within 21st Century Art History.