Portrait of Kendric Tonn

Kendric Tonn

United States

Watercolors of Japan

A painted travelogue of watercolors done in Japan

CultureArt

Biography

BORN IN 1982, Kendric showed no early signs of particular artistic talent: his work in grade-school ceramics classes at the local arts center could, perhaps, be described as enthusiastic, and the editorial cartoon he contributed to his high school paper was, in fact, described as consisting of “bloated stick figures.”

The usual things that, since time immemorial, have encourage the buds of a visual artist furled within the sensitive adolescent to blossom—Sailor Moon, Yoshitaka Amano, and his friends’ OCs—certainly stirred his own aesthetic feelings, but, by college, he had turned his ambitions to other, likelier-seeming, things.

Thus, Kendric received a BA in English from Sewanee: The University of the South in 2004, by which time he had thought about writing over five novels. He then spent a year as an ESL teacher in Japan before returning to school to study oil painting at SCAD and the Florence Academy of Art, from which he graduated in 2011.

He now lives in Columbus, Ohio and works as a freelance fine artist, painting portraits, figures, and still-lifes.

In Kendric's words

“The Fellowship grant it is both an honor and, in practical terms, a great aid. I've been fortunate to be able to do substantial work on my project, Scenes from Japan, over the last few years, and the artistic travelogue already consists of a hundred separate paintings collected with essays into three books. This will allow me to do a final round of painting culminating in exhibition of the work.”

Kendric Tonn, 2026

Award

  1. 2026

    O'Shaughnessy Fellowship

    A painted travelogue of watercolors done in Japan

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