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Kevin Cunningham — CV

I make functional art – art that is designed to get wet.

Not the functional art of a chair designed to rest comfortably in a living room and not the precious commodity of stainless silverware on a dining room table, but functional art that rides the waves and carries a passenger. And as an designer and an artist I feel the need to make this art have meaning, aesthetic beauty and sustainability.

Surfers traditionally respect the ocean and environment and actively work to protect it, yet we ride surfboards that are made from highly toxic materials that are a hazard to both the people who make them and the environment.

The next phase of surfboard evolution must be about returning to natural methods [until the late 1950's all surfboards were wood]. Surfing is Nature's gift to us. In turn, we must protect Nature in any way we can. My next magic board will be 100% natural. -Gary Linden, Master Surfboard Shaper and Legend. From The Surfboard: Art-Style-Stoke

Currently my work combines my two passions, art and design, and the sea (surfing). Surfing focuses on the individual's body and movement within the space of the wave; a dance.

The surfboard is truly a functional fine art piece; a means to connect to the sea; It is the mediator between the individual and the ocean. Surfing is a connection to the ocean at the scale of the body. When in the water consciousness spreads to the entire body; unlike on land when we are constantly grounded, the water holds the body suspended. The body floats immersed in the sea as it did when inside the mother's womb. It is comforting.

Surfing is a source; a source present in my life and work. In my work as an artist and architect surfing is present not in direct imagery, but as a sensibility and feeling toward the subject whether the expression be drawing, painting, or designing. I transpose the sensations I feel surfing into my studio work: how I draw, how I make a mark on a page, how I use the movement of light to carry the eye. I detach my body from my mind and draw intuitively. I move without thinking, intuitively, as I do when I surf.

There is an ocean within the body as well. The blood which circulates through the body has a chemical composition analogous to that of the ocean. I feel this connection in the water, two seas separated by a thin layer of skin; one internal, one external. The skin holds the ocean within our body as architecture holds life within a building. The two are separated from the outside, but not detached. There is a connection present in the porosity of the skin of the body and of the building.

Much of my work evokes the quiet and hermetic experience of surfing. Each wave is an individual experience; it is in the time waiting between waves that surfing has a social culture. The space of a wave is very intimate; the continuous transition of the surface as ground, wall, ceiling, ending with the eventual complete enclosure with only an opening to daylight. As I create each project I focus on the work as a cohesive whole, not just an individual piece but a series of work. I focus on craftsmanship and quality; materials are important; poetic meaning informs work.

Every wave ridden is a poetic dance on water, a performance piece meant only for the individual on the wave. I move with the wave, not against it, we dance together for a few seconds. When it is over I paddle back out and wait for another wave with which to dance.

It is in waiting I live- waiting for an ocean swell to bring waves, waiting for the tides to change, waiting for a wave. There will never be a time in my life when the waiting will end; I will always be waiting for the next wave. The oceans shape waves, I shape surfboards; the two combine in the act of surfing.

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