Tell us about yourself, your medium and the main focus of your practice?
After graduating in Fine Art at Liverpool John Moores, I moved back to Wales and I now rent out a studio space in the attic of a gallery in Chester. During my degree, I ventured with lots of different mediums, but primarily I have found my best pieces of work coming from film. Although if probed for an answer I would tell people I am a sculptor, as my work isn’t just the film I have made, it’s the dimensions I create with the film being just like paint to canvas. When I exhibit, there are multiple dimensions to the piece, and the film is perhaps just the heartbeat that keeps the work alive. One of my favourite pieces was a giant ‘technology pond’ where I projected people trapped in water onto huge slabs of translucent plastic. My practice ethos has developed so much over the years, I will always state that my work resides in political response, but more and more art is becoming merely for art’s sake. This helps me to just keep creating, practicing and working with new tools and methods, and creating work that shortly gains a structure of response.
My work has touched on a lot of subjects we are slowly coming to face with. My own interest in a dystopian world has always found a way to be inked into my work, but now the popularity of emphasising the world going digital is at an all-time high. I use this influence to keep my work raw and I’ll never use more than one person in shot. I suppose my work is quite solitude, which stems from my fascination of each of us having our own lonely world. I love the vulnerability of our organic structure, and I guess with using film I feel I can capture soul. I mainly use women in my work, partly because I had a shortage of males offering, but also simply because I love women more in art. My focus is to use more men in future projects, but to find the balance of not feminising them to a certain extent is difficult. Maybe I’m being sexist now, so I’ll stop at that cliff hanger.
What have you been doing since graduation – Where could we have seen your work, what projects have you been working on and how are you finding life after graduation?
After graduation, I was offered an amazing position as an assistant to an Art Director in Bristol. While I have always had my teeth in art and everything is fresh and great again, my mind was truly fried and I needed time to think, or not to think preferably. However, it wasn't long until I began approaching similar Artists and discussing our works, I recently exhibited 'Telematics in Dreaming' as part of a collective with other Artists in Chester. It was the first time I had shown anything since my Degree Show, and while I was suitably nervous to find if I had become rusty in arty nature, I was undeniably feeling refreshed and ready to start taking my practice seriously again.
It hasn’t been rosy at all though, and as any Artist will tell you, its nigh on impossible to balance a full time job and studio time. It wasn't long before I quit my job, took up part time in the city, and volunteered admin roles in exchange for a studio space with 4 other Artists in an airy loft within walking distance from work. I'm enjoying generating new ideas with other Artists at the moment. I want to revisit a piece that I bumped off my Degree Show, and the incredible thing about burying it for a couple of months, is that I began to like it again, which I found while being at university, I hated almost everything I attempted.
Towards the end of my degree, I was playing around a lot with the idea of our organic structure. One thing I have discovered since leaving is the sudden realization that I have no tools of my own, and to start from the beginning with my little fuji camera and a steady arm is like learning to walk again. I know how to do it but I just can’t yet okay?
Also in my final year we all worked with a publicist who was absolutely fantastic, and he showed me new ways to create sculptures from words. I touched on this the year before with vinyl letters and using the buildings architecture to convey extracts of dead writers, however Nathan showed me the wonders of Art poetry, which sang to my love of literature. So, I’m working more on that project too.
Whats next? Whats In the pipeline? What new things are you working on?
I’m pretty excited about the future of my practice! I have to admit I left my degree with cold feet. I was just so OVERWHELMED. I wanted to create art about everything, and I didn’t know how and it made me question how I managed to even make one thing. But now I have learned that it’s a blessing rather than a curse to feel strongly in every aspect. Every day I am gathering research, logging ideas and talking more with people just as thirsty. I’m working hard to create a new body of work, and then maybe I’ll start exhibiting publicly again next year. I may start looking into residencies also, but at the moment I’m really loving the group I bounce with, so that’s not really a priority at the moment. I really want people to know that all the worry and stress and guilt of not making work sometimes is all part of the process and you will be all the stronger for it. Trust yourself and work with yourself!
TO SEE MORE OF KIM'S WORK CHECK OUT HER INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/kaj.artist/
INTERVIEW by HANNAH SMITH
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