Self-taught 8-year-old artist holds own solo exhibit

By Lauren Beavis

Meet the 8-year-old artist who taught himself how to paint - and is now holding his own exhibition.

Kevin Kovacs is a self-taught artist who started drawing when he was a toddler.

He now has his own solo art exhibition at the Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre in Taunton after his mom, Natalia, started sharing his work on social media.

Kevin from Wellington, Somerset, is 'very happy' about his exhibition, which opened on Tuesday, Feb. 25 and will close on Tuesday, April 29.

The young artist, who even made his own prices for his artwork on sale at the exhibition, said: "I am happy about my exhibition and that people can see my art on the walls and I hope for another exhibition in London!"

Kevin has been exposed to creativity and art since he was born - as both his mom and dad, Robert, are keen photographers.

Natalia said: "My husband photographs nature, wildlife and landscapes, so Kevin was around cameras all the time and we loved to draw with him when he was a toddler.

"We bought him all kinds of mediums - paints, water colors, and all kinds of art supplies that I could use with him.

"And I could see he was enjoying it when he was around two."

Natalia said when Kevin turned five he started sketching - and took inspiration from all the trips he went on with his family around the South West.

She explained: "He loved sketching buildings which he had seen from when we were travelling and outside.

"We love to travel a lot - and Kevin would sometimes want to visit a village or city near us, and we would be sitting down and he would just be drawing and sketching.

"Then he started remembering the places we had been and would be drawing places we had visited two or three weeks earlier."

Soon after, Kevin would use Natalia's phone to take photos of his surroundings and began drawing the images he had taken.

Natalia said Kevin is inspired and 'fascinated' with everything that moves: trains, cars, airplanes, children playing and animals.

He then began using color when Natalia showed him winning artwork from competitions around the world.

She explained: "There was one winning art piece from a competition in India - it was very colorful - and that was the point he started coloring.

"I bought him pastels, and he wanted to try all of the different mediums he could."

Once people started to take an interest in Kevin's work, Natalia decided to create an Instagram account for her son, so she could post all of his art in one place.

She said: "People were asking me all the time about his art - I used to post on my Facebook page, then Wellington, Taunton and other local Facebook groups too."

A volunteer from Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre then reached out to Natalia after seeing Kevin's work online and showed an interest in hosting an exhibition for Kevin's work - which Kevin and his family 'happily' agreed to.

Natalia said: "He is obviously very happy.

"He's very passionate in everything he does, he loves doing loads of stuff.

"We went on the first day the exhibition opened and had a couple of people coming, and people wanted to buy his art.

"If he decides to do art in the future, we are happy for him because he's a natural.

"You can see - he's now really into boats, and he tells me it comes very easily to him.

"I remember being told by other artists boats are very hard to do - but for him, it's easy!"