Keith Wicks began painting at age 11 and won his first city-sponsored art award in the sixth grade. Growing up in Bakersfield, California, Keith became a commercial success at an early age and opened his own business, Design Associates Advertising Agency, at age 19. After graduating from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration, Keith began freelancing for some of the most notable media firms in the country-such as Industrial Light and Magic-when he went on to open his own gallery, Vermilion Art, in Sonoma, California.
An artist member and member of the Board of Directors of the California Art Club, Keith’s award-winning paintings, which have been jury-selected for exhibitions at the Pasadena Museum of History and the renowned Sausalito Art Festival, and have been showcased in various galleries throughout San Francisco.
With more than 30 years of experience, Keith devotes considerable time to teaching at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and to various charities that promote art education in public schools.
Keith currently lives and works as an artist full time in Sonoma, California. Always looking for that split-second of light and intensity of color, he paints under the vast Sonoma sky or from photos taken on location. Working primarily in oils, Keith captures the essence of a moment with clarity and intensity rarely seen in impressionistic works. He has created a technique to harness the purity and energy of light-even as it dances in shadow. Whether reminiscent of the Renaissance or evoking the nostalgia of the more recent past, Keith Wicks masterfully preserves that precise and succinct instant when the viewer beholds a thing of beauty for the first time.