Ken Gingerich is a native of Northern Indiana and attended Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas where he graduated with a BA in Art. He has also studied in the University of New Mexico’s Non Architectural Graduate (NAG) program and at Anabaptist Mennonite Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana.
Most of his career has been spent as a graphic designer and communications director for non-profit organizations, including Hesston (Kansas) College and the Rio Grande Zoo. More recently he served as creative director for the communications staff of Mennonite Church USA.
Gingerich resumed active painting in 2009 and has exhibited in solo shows at Spring Song Gallery in Albuquerque, Cobalt Gallery in Newton, Kansas, the Friesen-Regier Gallery at Hesston College, Hesston, Kansas and at Mountain Community Gallery in Palmer Lake, Colo. He currently works out of a studio at the Harwood Art Center where he enjoys the interaction with a wide variety of artists in early, mid-career and “late bloomer” stages of creative expression.
Artist Statement
Some of my more visual memories are the shapes and shades of green and yellow covered fields near my childhood home in Northern Indiana. April in the Great Lakes region produces evidence that warmer weather is approaching as the last snows melt and the tentative greens of grass-filled ditches are filled with the bright yellows of dandelions, daffodils and forsythia—all beneath a rain-washed sky of robin’s-egg blue. Color has always infused my imagination.
As I began to explore artistic expression, the colors, lines and patters of my formative experiences seemed to come into play—always interacting with the land and natural elements where I find myself. Certainly, the years of my youth in Indiana, college and work in Kansas and Pennsylvania and international experiences in Northeast Brazil, play into the most visually compelling place I’ve ever lived—New Mexico.
My work is done with acrylic paint on Masonite or birch panels—sturdy and forgiving. The process is interactive. Color is put down, often inspired by a memory, a particular view or dream. The images emerge from the painting itself as simple shapes, geometric patterns or organic forms are applied—kind of like an Amish quilt. I continue to be fascinated by the unexpected combinations of color and texture and try to let these unforeseen images guide the process until I’m “almost” satisfied.
