Kirk Pedersen was born in Broken Bow, Nebraska, in 1959. He has also lived in California, including the Los Angeles area.

He is a painter of botanical, urban and rural subjects in both photo real and abstract styles. In a 1987 exhibition publication, Pedersen's studio was described as being "in a narrow concrete building across the street from the main line of the Union Pacific."

Donald Bartlett Doe of the Rockford Art Museum in Rockford, Illinois, wrote that the artist does not work from photographs or sketches but begins by placing paper "on the cracked concrete floor of his studio. Onto the paper, from various heights, he pours and splatters paint, which disperses across the paper in a manner in part dictated by chance."

"Then, once dried, Pedersen attaches the paper to a wall and with brush in hand creates an image that emerges both from pre-design and chance. "Out of this exploration comes his landscapes, fragments of the urban world which have been eroded by conditions natural to a city. The concrete curbing is cracked, paint on pavement is worn by weather and traffic; occasionally, intrusions of the natural world appear: water pools in a street, grass penetrates concrete."

Pedersen earned a B.A. degree from Midland College, Fremont, Nebraska in 1982 and an M.A. from San Francisco State University in 1985. He also attended Arizona State University in Tempe in 1981.

Gallery exhibition venues include Houston, Texas; Scottsdale, Arizona; San Francisco, California; and Honolulu, Hawaii. Corporate/Business Collectors of work by the artist are the Central Bank, U.S. West and the Kaiser Foundation of Denver, Colorado; VISA International of San Mateo, California; Grubb Ellis of Tucson, Arizona; Doric Development of Alameda, California; Shell Oil of Houston, Texas; and Southwestern Life Insurance of Dallas, Texas.

Source: http://www.kirkpedersen.com, "Kirk Pedersen", 1987 exhibition catalogue with Introduction by Donald Bartlett Doe, Director of Rockford Art Museum in Rockford, Illinois.

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas
Fisher Art Gallery, University of Southern Californa, Los Angeles, California
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, California
Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada
Rahr-West Art Museum, Manitowoc, Wisconsin
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska
Sioux City Art Center, Iowa
Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Missouri
University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, California