Arthur Kraft

Art Kraft combines the role of the social observer with the skill of the artist to show bold new images that peek inside us all. A place Kraft says we rarely wish to look.

"Not surprisingly, I paint what I see going on in the world around me. I call my latest series American's hidden lives, the things that move us…the things we long for. I’ve seen people struggling to find meaning in their lives and settling for empty, “successes". I’ve seen our longing for attachment and for affection, and I’ve seen that it’s possible to create your own prison and long for escape.

I expect my paintings to provide some means of escape, some evidence of a vital, genuine world. I want my paintings to show compassion, not for others so much, but for ourselves. If painting says “that has something to do with me,” that’s a success"

 Kraft has used his skills to paint insightful, moving images. He soon discovered that painting is in reality, a form of writing. The forms and colors on the canvas are not just reflections, but ideas. They are things that are really there, but just out of sight; fear, longing, attachment, our cultural isolation, our quest for love.

In 2000 he left his position as the News Director of a Southern California, National Public Radio station, to devote his full time to painting. Years of training as a writer have combined with three decades of artistic struggle, to produce his body of work.