Kevin Albert Yee was born in Maui, Hawaii. After graduating with a degree in Fine Art from California State University at Fullerton in 1974, Kevin began illustration work for an international publishing company. In 1980, he relocated with the company to Florence, Italy where he studied at the Academia de Sienna, and the Academia de Arte Firenze. Here he learned such techniques as fresco and egg tempera. During his six years in Florence, he was promoted to head art director for the Italian division of the publishing company. Over the next twelve years, he painted more than three hundred oils, many large and prominent paintings, which still hang in chateaus and villas in Italy, France, England, South Africa and India.

After years of classical training and illustration, Kevin has evolved to appreciate the spontaneity and mystical way of capturing the moment, then breathing life into his art. This has become the framework for his passion as a plein air painter. Kevin's greatest influence has been Edgar Payne, who understood that, "while nature furnishes the visual motive, art comes from the depictor." Kevin feels this gives infinite meaning to the artists' involvement in truthfully rendering the scene. Although his studies over the years have included artists from Constable to Sargent, this current direction of plein air Kevin more than two decades to develop.

Today, Kevin travels extensively to paint on location, which presents its own challenges. He must move quickly, as the light changes, to capture the mood and illumination of a particular moment. That is why Kevin's paintings capture windows of time between storm clouds, before a sunset or just as rain begins to fall. His feeling for the rhythm of water, along with the movement of air, is often understated, yet powerful in his paintings. Kevin's paintings are real extensions of his direct experience with the subject; his inner eye seems to capture the mood and reality of the atmosphere with a sixth sense.