I have seen a great many talks from artists at all stages of life and career and most are abysmal. Even the most powerful artists can struggle to explain themselves, and why should they have to? Some deal exclusively with technique without disclosing motive and most don't want to address the significance of their work, believing (correctly, I think) that this is bad form.

Kimberly was able to go beyond a discussion of process to tell a narrative of her evolution as an artist. She talked about important paintings that had inspired her and was able to place herself and her work in an art historical context. But most of all, she possessed a kind of certainty and coherence I rarely hear at artist talks, panel discussions, press previews, etc.

Her work, both old and new, is on view in the Steele gallery on the third floor of Gage. The emphasis is on self-portraiture in its many forms. Her more recent work expresses itself through the arrangement of dramatic planes of deep pink and icy blue - the figure rendered sharp but fluidly through an idiosyncratic abstraction. The paintings lay before the viewer as lightly as a cloud, but manage to penetrate with their alert and fully-realized presences.

Kimberly Trowbridge, Point and Shoot 2008

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Jim Demetre