With this awareness, Kirk continued his art studies at the University of California, Berkeley, while majoring in biophysics. After earning his medical degree from UCLA, he returned to undergraduate art classes there while practicing medicine. He later joined a group of figurative artists in Los Angeles, where he discovered his true artistic passion: the study of the human form. Over several years, he honed his skills through drawing and painting from the live model, all while starting a family in the early 1990s.
After relocating with his young family to Santa Barbara, Kirk studied sculpture and design at Santa Barbara City College and continued intensive figure study with local artists in live-model studios. Over the years, his paintings and sculptures have received awards in group exhibitions and competitions in Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara, California, as well as in Oregon and Idaho. His work has been shown in both solo and group exhibitions throughout California, Oregon, and Idaho, where he now resides.
Kirk retired from practicing medicine in 2024 and maintains both a metal sculpture studio and a drawing and painting studio in his hometown of Star, Idaho. He continues to draw and paint weekly with a local figure-drawing group in Boise. All of his work begins with the cherished practice of studying and expressing the human figure from the live model.