Kevin Kuenster is an American painter whose work blends narrative storytelling with surreal imagery. Influenced by 20th-century female surrealists such as Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, and Remedios Varo, as well as the precision of Northern Renaissance painting.
His art examines human folly, vulnerability, and estrangement from the natural world.
Kevin’s paintings often depict human and animal presences that act as symbols of absurdity, innocence, and the fragile link between our lives and those of animals, both real and imagined.
Kevin’s work has been exhibited internationally, including, “Echoes of Lynch” Opale Art, Paris, France 2025, “60 years sixty artists, Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY 2024, "Altered Dreams" at The Royal Society of American Artists, Brooklyn, NY 2022, "Voyage" The ARC Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2022, and at The Imagoars Art Gallery, Venice Italy 2017.
In 2021 he received the Mediterranean Contemporary Art Prize, Third Prize for Painting, in Potenza, Italy, and was awarded first prize, "Fun House: Art of the Surreal, Fantastic and Bizarre" The Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY.
Kevin has also been featured in international art publications, with interviews and reviews appearing in Barbagelata Contemporary Art Foundation, Barcelona, Spain 2025, Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art Magazine interview, fall issue 2025 and summer issue 2026, The Visual Arts Journal, interview, Issue 32, 2025, and Art Seen Magazine, profile and interview, winter issue 2025.
Kevin’s most recent exhibitions;
“Who Do We Think We Are” a solo retrospective at the DAMA Gallery in Los Angeles, CA 2025
“Apple Face” contemporary surrealist art. MRIYA Gallery, Tribeca, NYC 2026
