Adam Kurey
Biography
Painting and art in general has not always been a passion of mine. Growing up I’ve always had the mental image of an artist resembling Bob Ross wearing his Mr Rogers sweaters painting his happy trees…that wasn’t me. My art journey started when I was just out of high school and a life-changing event transformed my life in ways I can barely describe. Some describe it as “finding God” but I would say it was more like God finding me. Prior to that, my talents were relegated to skateboarding and smoking weed. Just being honest. I had no interest in the arts much less did I think that I would have any actual talent. I have some great drawings saved from when I was in the 5th grade that are pretty good but that’s pretty much it and I wish today that I would have invested more in developing my artistic abilities. Now, I have the creative bug…..pretty bad. Over the years, it has possessed me in seasons of obsession, I discovered talent in painting, drawing, writing music on the guitar, and the piano, recording and producing music, cooking, swing & salsa dancing, and in teaching/leading classes or studies in those avenues. Creativity spread to literally every other aspect of my life, giving everything a new flavor, a new color. Like seeing and experiencing things for the first time in a new way.
Painting started for me when my stepmom bought me my first painter’s starter kit and a cool little wooden easel that folded up into a backpack. I stamped out several acrylic paintings that brought me a lot of positive feedback and before long I received my first commission request to paint the Huntington Beach pier. It was then that I realized that this was a talent worth focusing on. Heavy texture and glow-in-the-dark have since become my two defining attributes as an artist. After seeing an artist who used texture in an art magazine I read at Barnes and Noble, I fell in love with the process immediately. I started adding phosphorescent powders, gels, and paints, to make my art glow in the dark after seeing a sculpture artist, Larry Ortega, using them in his resin mold sculptures on Instagram. I was pouring resin over every one of my projects at the time and I figured that I could incorporate the same concepts in my paintings. I am still defining my focus as an artist, as I like so many styles and just want to do it all. I primarily work with acrylics but I love working with oils and watercolors and have been using them more frequently over the years. Abstract art has always been my personal favorite to create and my main front but commission work has broadened my scope to include landscapes, animals and characters.
My creative goals have taken on a new meaning now that I have created my own little humans.
My “Why”
Why do I paint? How did painting become my focus and a business goal of mine?
I have many reasons. It gives my mind a chance to run without limits, it gives my passion a visual voice so to speak and it gives me a way to connect with others outside of so many boundaries and biases that exist today. But the more I searched this question I discovered, that in this season, it all breaks down to this… It makes me money now. See, my greatest goal and passion is to cultivate the talents and dreams of my children and I need to be home from a full-time job to do that. So my art business is the first stream of income that I am building to get me closer to that goal of being a present father.
It used to be that I could only find the refreshment and flavor of life through my creative expressions of art, extreme sports, or learning something new. Now I find it so much more in watching my children experience this life and find their own creative expression. Most of my passion which has thoroughly burned in every vein of my being has seemingly been absorbed into the passion and desire to be a father that could cultivate a harvest of that in my own children. I feel that I have been given a new aim and a new purpose that is much bigger than what I could do or achieve on my own. It’s now about what they can do and how I can help them achieve all they were meant to. All my dreams that I have had and talents that I have cultivated are for them, to give them my ceiling as their floor. My dreams are to be spent building their dreams, and my purpose is to help them discover and refine their purpose.
I have other talents and passions that I enjoy more than painting but this is my focus here and now because it is helping me to get home to do what I most love to do. Spend time loving and teaching my kids. I want to help my children dream as big as their little hearts can dream and then be a present and helping hand building those dreams with them to their fullest potential. Of course, I love the art of painting itself and it is clearly a passion of mine. I hope my art will plant seeds of inspiration and great memories within my children and many others.
