Today we’d like to introduce you to Kim Kimbro.
Kim, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I think of myself as a born-again painter. I was not the kind of child who drew, painted, or doodled constantly. Or at all, in fact. I do not come from an artsy family so it was not on my radar at all until I took a drawing class at around age 14. I had the great fortune to have a magical teacher who unlocked something I had no idea was in me. It was the first time I recognized that I had a natural talent for something that came easily and that I loved doing. She took great care in nurturing that. From there I went on to Parsons School of Design and studied surface design. It was the most impractical, un-useful thing I could possibly study at an expensive school best known for churning out designers.
It was a blessing and a curse because it meant that I left with hardly any practical skills, but I did a ton of exploring in a very abstract way, with professors who kept herding me toward the pragmatic end of things, without actually studying under the daunting umbrella of studio painting. Almost immediately after leaving Parsons I took a weird, circuitous route where I held full-time jobs doing curiously interesting things, but non-art things. These were my “lost years”, where I did not pick up a brush for about ten years. One night I literally sat bolt upright in bed and decided that I wanted to paint. I went out that very morning and bought supplies, put a tarp on my floor, and THAT was the day I became a painter.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I make paintings of people and animals that are – at their most basic level – self-portraits. It’s cheap therapy. They exist somewhere between abstract and real and unreal. They are evidence of something psychological I need to work out and I rope in some poor person or animal to be the vessel through which those inner machinations are expressed. People say they find my paintings to be empathetic and emotional and visceral. They’re first drawn to something they find to be instantly recognizable and are then sucked into a deeper state of reflection and projection. They serve as good Rorschach tests!
Do current events, local or global, affect your work and what you are focused on?
I don’t think artists “should” have a role, other than to simply respond to the things that they connect with. We’re conduits, full stop. Sometimes those responses are personal, universal, political, philosophical, relatable or indecipherable. It isn’t our job to be messengers, emissaries or distillers of global matters and information – although often we are. It’s different for everyone, and our reasons for making art vary wildly. Issues of the day certainly affect me, and I’m sure my art-making marinates in that. For me, though, it’s all internalized and fermented and baked in, rather than sprinkled on top.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
My website (kimkimbro.com) is always a good place to start. You can see selected works, both past and present, reviews, my bio and current or forthcoming exhibitions. I sometimes get a wild hair and do month-long challenges where I post a daily Inktober painting, for example. You can support my work by following me on Instagram and fb @KimKimbroArt or friend me on fb at Kim Kimbro Taylor. And of course, supporting artists by buying art from them directly is the surest, sincerest and most appreciated form of support. Many artists, myself included, have works available in a range of sizes and price points for even beginning collectors.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kimkimbro.com
- Email: kimkimbrotaylor@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimkimbroart/
- Facebook: follow my art on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/kimkimbroart/
- Other: friend me on facebook – https://www.facebook.com/kim.kimbrotaylor
Image Credit:
All images, oil on canvas. Additional information on size and availability can be obtained at www.kimkimbro.com
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