Originally from Florida, Kim Gibbs is a Charlotte-based artist with a love for texture, movement, and color. However, Kim’s creative process begins long before paint pigment is ever mixed. The images that Kim depicts on her canvas are all from her imagination. She builds the composition in her mind, sketches it out with watercolor paintings in her trusty sketchbooks, and then approaches the canvas where she lets her mind and body come together to create. 

Kim is primarily self-taught, but has experienced once-in-a-lifetime opportunities studying under world-class instructors along the way as well as participating in numerous workshops from Scottsdale to Maine. She thanks Albert Handel, Timothy Horn and Millie Gosch, Camille Prezwodek and Andy Braitman for their encouragement, teachings, and instruction.

While Kim Gibbs loves a trusty paintbrush, she begins her creative process by throwing, splattering, and smearing paint on her canvases. As the process unfolds, she scratches and scrapes at the paint, adding and subtracting, beckoning it to take on a form of it’s own. She paints aggressively, with vigor and passion as she body sweeps across her canvas. 

By pushing, pulling, and manipulating the paint, the painting itself takes on a life of it’s own. Kim’s paintings are not delicately crafted images - they are strong, dramatic pieces that build upon the artist’s direction with each scrape and stroke. For Kim, her application is part of expressing emotion to the viewer. While it may be aggressive, her pieces are filled with energy that evoke strong responses from the viewers. Her goal for her painting is somewhat of a life mantra : “Art that Inspires!”

How did Kim begin painting? While raising her children, she began to explore watercolors which revealed the way color reacts to light. From there, she worked in pastel, acrylics, and finally found oil. However, she still holds on to the her guiding principle of how color and light react together = It’s the way in which she sees the world.

While she loves her sun-filed, paint-splattered studio at Dilworth Artisan Station, Kim’s painting is not limited to her studio. Her art is rendered in her imagination, and she feeds this by an annual visit to Maine where she paints en plein air with other artist friends.

When she’s not painting in her studio, you can find Kim with her husband walking their dog, traveling to see her daughter and son-in-law, or working out with her trainer.

Kim’s works can be found in private collections as well as corporate settings, and she is currently represented by galleries in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia. Other shows, awards, and honors are as follows :

2011 Atlanta Artists Center, honorable mention, Carrolton Art Center; 

2012 Atlanta Decorator Show House; 

2012, 2015, 2016, Anne Irwin Emerging Artists of Atlanta; 

2013 - 2018  Spotlight on Art; 

2014 : Ciel Gallery “Tree Show”

2015- Spring 2016 Artist in Residency at Braitman Studios

2016, Five Women Spring Show at Frameworks Gallery in Atlanta; Neiman Marcus Show in Atlanta; ArtFoodHome.com featured artist; “Best and Brightest” Scottsdale Artist School

2016 - 2017 Art for Heart

2017 Solo Show Reinert Fine Art Gallery of Charleston, 

2018 “Free Falling: Open to Interpretation” at Frameworks, Atlanta, GA; Sozo Gallery Featured Artist, Charlotte, NC; Featured Artist at the Gorelick Gallery at CPCC

2019 : Commissioned by WellStar Hospital Group - Holly Springs, GA; Solo Exhibition Show at The Little Gallery, Roanoke, VA 

 

Additionally Kim is a member of Oil Painters of America, Women Painters of the Southeast, Artists of N.W. Atlanta, and the Dilworth Artisan Station.