Practical

Kenneth Webb was born in Swalwell, Alberta, approximately 50 miles northeast of Calgary. He graduated with Honours from the Alberta College of Art in Calgary in 1976 and pursued post-graduate studies at the Royal College of Art in London, England from 1977-78.

Webb began his career as a technician in printmaking and photography at the University of Calgary in 1976. He later operated Trojan Press - Etching Studio from 1978-81 and K. Webb Fine Art Printing from 1981-84. From 1982 to 2004, he served as an instructor in the Printmaking Department at the Alberta College of Art & Design, eventually becoming Professor Emeritus. Throughout his career, he held various visiting artist positions at institutions including the Banff School of Fine Art, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, University of Lethbridge, and Red Deer College.

Webb is a multidisciplinary artist working as a printmaker, painter, sculptor, and draftsman. His mediums include etching, aquatint, ink, colored pencil, graphite, acrylic, and mixed media. His artistic practice reflects on the desensitizing of photographic images and processes of filtering or interference. Initially constructing images as digital files and reinterpreting them into paintings, his work incorporates printed photographic images, graphic elements, and handmade painted objects.

His subjects encompass architectural configurations, landscapes, figures, plants, historic events, meteorological phenomena such as tornadoes, geological phenomena including volcanoes and geysers, disasters like shipwrecks and fires, as well as explorations of shape, color, and texture.

Webb has received numerous awards throughout his career, including the L. Scott Brewster Award for high scholastic achievement, the Queen Elizabeth Prize in 1975 and 1976, purchase awards from the 2nd Canadian Biennial of Print and Drawing in 1980 and Graphics 8 in 1981, a Canada Council Travel Grant in 1982, and the Award of Excellence from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2002.

He has exhibited extensively in solo shows at venues including Herringer Kiss Gallery in Calgary, John Ramsay Contemporary Art in Vancouver, Paul Kuhn Fine Art in Calgary, and Mira Godard Gallery in Toronto. His group exhibitions have included international shows and traveling exhibitions across Canada, the United States, and Australia.

Webb's work is held in numerous permanent collections including the Canada Council Art Bank, Glenbow Museum, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Victoria, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, University of Calgary, and various corporate collections including the Bank of Nova Scotia, Royal Bank of Canada, and Coca-Cola.

His work has been featured in several publications, including "Hidden Values, Contemporary Canadian Art in Corporate Collections" by Robert Swain, "Printmaking in Alberta: 1945-1985" by Bente Roed Cochran, "Sitelines, Printmaking and Image Culture" by Walter Jule, and "An Alberta Chronicle, Adventures in Recent and Contemporary Art" by Mary-Beth Laviolette.