Kevin Orlosky has been a life-long artist and tinkerer. It all started when he was in the womb and used his first medium, the umbilical cord, to create sculpture. Since no one is really born with natural talent, he still had much needed practicing to do. His first attempt didn’t go so well as his sculpture was wrapped around his neck upon entry into the world thus making it difficult breath. So practicing he did. He loved it. From illustrating books about daffodils at 6 to creating masterfully detailed large intricate mazes at 10, Kevin delighted in finding new ways to release the visions inside his head. He relished it so much I think he tried releasing the visions a little too literally. At the ripe age of 17 during his rebellious and anti-authoritarian punk years he got thrills out of jumping off dangerously high objects while wearing wheels on his feet. He learned pretty abruptly that smashing your head into the concrete doesn’t help get the visions out, just puts you in the intensive care. But it turned out alright, since he had a lot of down time, Kevin was able to put a large amount of focus into creating art. Thus projecting him into the path of artisthood.
Now as all young artists seeking fame and fortune, he set off to art school. Kevin chose Savannah College of Art and Design because he was drawn its state of the art facilities, the city’s southern charm, the long distance away from the parents, and the glorious live oaks draping in Spanish moss. Here he did all the same stuff that kids in art school do, like focus really hard on drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, practice recreational drug use, delight in the occasional hardcore drug that you can’t pronounce the name, and try to get girls to see him naked. Not in the posing for life drawing way. Oh, and almost forgot, making some really good paintings. Luckily he was surrounded by lots of other brilliant people and managed to learn old master techniques, master color theory and composition, help manage student run non profit galleries, and curate exhibitions. He escaped somehow by graduating with honors, fell in love with his now superiorly smart and beautiful wife Andrea and moved to Chicago.
Except for the two months of summer, Chicago was awesomely cold, disturbingly grey, and real life wrenchingly depressing. Kevin realized quickly that the life of an artist in the real world is mind bendingly hard. So something had to be done. He and his wife decided to reboot and move to Richmond. Here they founded Art on wheels which has allowed Kevin to dive deep into learning new materials, processes, and techniques while sharing his discoveries with those who lack access to art. Through his work with Art on Wheels, he has developed connections with amazing artists and organizers, conceived outrageous and meaningful monumental art projects that do things like launch objects from a custom built ballista 100’ through the air into clay to create a sculpture honoring veterans, to breaking world records in printmaking to honor people affected by cancer. Somehow during all of this he managed to display his work at a couple of prestigious Virginia museums, exhibit internationally, and create his greatest masterpieces ever, a girl human named Ada, and a boy human named Ellis.