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VIDEOS
Kim Thoman on Teaching
Kim Thoman on Nebraska Roots
Kim Thoman on How Art Happens
Kim Thoman Defines Her Art
Kim Thoman: Reactions to Her Art
ARTIST STATEMENTS
Artist Statement: 2012
The Pod Series was begun in 2007 and continued for the next two years. It was followed by the on-going Venus Series. These paintings juxtapose two panels, one computer generated, and the other with traditional oil painting. Recent paintings of the Venus Series employ three contrasting panels.
The computer generated images are created on a 3-D modeling program, with painting digitally applied as skin or texture. The adjacent panel is painted with oil stick and oil paint, and its forms are drawn from both nature and the imagination. The painted panels have a worked, often textural surface, and forms are "hatched" in an intuitive process. The dimensional forms can be seen as holding energy that bursts forth into another state, like a cocoon and a butterfly.
These paintings both express the artist's inner necessity and are informed by the place where they are made. The Venus Series was shaped by the landscape and sky of Taos, New Mexico. The Taos Mountain offered a sense of security as the exuberant sky manifested surreal visions that left the painter ungrounded, but responsive to the huge mound of earth rising upwards.
This work embodies a fascination with the connections between body and soul, intellect and intuition, stillness and movement. This interest in duality encompasses the relationship between male and female, the physical world and the unseen, life and death. We order our life in mundane ways, while we move most often unconsciously toward a final shape-shifting transition. This work is an attempt to reflect these energy contrasts.
Despite the philosophical concerns in this work, the natural elements are symbols for the artist's own growth process. These paintings can be regarded as the work of an autobiographical artist, documenting her own evolution - from the center. outward.
Artist Statement: 2011
Dualities that exist in nature as well as in the mind intrigue me. I have a fascination with connections between body and soul, intellect and intuition, male and female, stillness and movement, the pause before a burst of storm, light and shadow, physical world and unseen experience, life and death. We order our lives in mundane ways, while we move continuously, and most often unconsciously, toward a final shape-shifting transition. In my work, I attempt to reflect these energy contrasts.
Despite my work taking on a philosophical direction, the natural elements are symbols for my growth process. Perhaps I am simply an autobiographical artist documenting my own evolution -- from the center outward.
Artist Statement: Spiral Series
The work in this series evolved from a previous body of paintings/drawings that was an investigation of motion. To perhaps better understand these works, it may be helpful to read a section from my artist statement from the catalogue published by Virginia Tech University, summer 2003, for my exhibit titled, Blacksburg Motion Series, at the Perspective Gallery of Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia. >>MORE
Artist Statement: Blacksburg Motion Series
The work in this series was created during the summers of 2001 and 2002 in Blacksburg, a small university town in southwest Virginia. My studio was just south of town, a beautiful drive, each day, through the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Before discovering Blacksburg as a place that suited my needs for concentrated focus, I traveled to Vermont to work. Each summer, the churning experience of uprooting my studio (from my home in the San Francisco Bay Area) to paint in a new time zone, space and environment seemed to thrust my thinking in new directions. It was then that my interest in motion began to stir. >>MORE
BIO
Kim Thoman creates paintings that combine the artist's hand and digital images. These two modes of working reflect her interest in the dynamic of dualities, such as nature and culture, the mechanical and the organic, life and death.
Thoman was born in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1949, and grew up with an interest in the arts, which was encouraged by her mother. She went on to study ceramics at the University of California, Davis and transferred to Berkeley, where she studied painting and drawing, receiving her BA in 1972. Thoman sees her work at Berkeley as the start of her major interest in both two and three-dimensional work, and ultimately combining them. She did her graduate work in ceramics at San Francisco State University, but when she graduated with an MFA in 1979 she began to paint, and considers herself a self-taught painter.
Thoman's work has developed in distinct phases, each of which contain elements of her current body of work. While in graduate school, she produced for her final exhibition a series of drawing/paintings with attached intestine-like forms. In the early 1980s, Thoman created hard-edged paintings with cartoon-like images of men and women. In the two-panel paintings of the 1990s, the two sides were treated as independent entities, because, in the artist's words, "each side was to hold its own....each side was informed by a different side of myself."
In the Motion series of chalk drawings from 2001-2002, Thoman developed many of the visual ideas that she would use over the next decade. There is the combination of mechanical and the natural, and the use of the spiral, the circular portal, and shell-like forms. With the Spiral series of 2003 Thoman began to use the computer. She drew linear vortexes on the computer and outputted them on paper on which she painted layered, surreal images that seem inspired both by nature and inner states of feeling.
Thoman considers the Tangled Witness series a more realized use of "the computer as mark maker". These paintings feature densely impacted passages with a variety of organic and abstract motifs that open up to reveal stylized drawing done on the computer. This work lead to the Pod Series, with its juxtaposition of a computer generated image, an illusion of three-dimensional form, and a painted abstract domain in the adjacent panel. The current Venus Series, uses a similar form, but here strongly suggesting a paleolithic fertility statuette paired with a large painted panel evocative of the desert landscape.
Travel has played a formative role in Thoman's art. Each summer for the past fifteen years she has traveled to different locations to work, including New Mexico, Vermont, and Virginia, with each site having a specific effect on her paintings. Thoman's work has been in many solo exhibitions including Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA, JFK University, Orinda, CA, Stanford Art Spaces, Palo Alto, CA, Oakopolis Gallery, Oakland, CA, and Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey, CA, Bank of America World Headquarters, San Francisco, CA.
ARTICLES
BINOCULAR VISION
by John Mendelsohn
March, 2012
KIM THOMAN
by Peter Frank
January, 2012
DRASTIC PARK [review of Pod Series exhibition]
by DeWitt Cheng
East Bay Express
February, 2008
ENERGY SHIFTS: The Blacksburg Motion Series of Kim Thoman
by Meredith Tromble
April 16, 2003
RESUMÉ
Born: Lincoln, Nebraska
GRANTS & AWARDS
The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Residency Grant, Taos, New Mexico, 2007.
Vermont Studio Center Residency, Johnson, Vermont, 2003, 2000, 1999.
Change Inc. Grant, New York, New York, 1993.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2010 Monterey Peninsula College Art Gallery, Monterey, California.
2009 "W", San Francisco, California.
2008 SFMOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, California.
Oakopolis Gallery, Oakland, California.
2006 California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, California.
2005 Stanford Art Spaces, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.
Dream Institute of Northern California, Berkeley, California.
2003 Perspective Gallery, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Virginia (catalogue).
1998 Quantum Corporation, Milpitas, California.
1997 Gallery of the Center for Psychological Studies, Albany, California.
1994 JFK University Art Gallery, Orinda, California.
1993 Jung Institute of San Francisco, San Francisco, California.
California School for Professional Psychology, Alameda, California.
1992 Graham & James Law Offices, San Francisco, California.
1991 Bank of America World Headquarters, Plaza Gallery, San Francisco, California.
1990 SFMOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, California.
1987 Djurovich Gallery, Sacramento, California.
1985 Monterey Peninsula Museum, Monterey, California.
1983 Cabot College Art Gallery, Oakland, California.
1982 Berkeley Stage Theater, Berkeley, California.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2005 Dayle Dunn Gallery, Half Moon Bay, California.
U.C. Berkeley Art Alumni Show, Berkeley, California.
Art Concepts Gallery, Walnut Creek, California.
Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, California.
Outnumbered: Works On Paper, Jackrabbit Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
2002 Reflections, San Pablo Arts Gallery, San Pablo, California.
Contemporary Abstracts, Artisans Gallery, Mill Valley, California. (Best of Show)
Maxtor Corporation, San Jose, California.
2001 Aspect Communications, San Jose, California.
3Com Corporation, Santa Clara, California.
2000 Synopsys Incorporated, Mountain View, California.
1998 Womanscape: Body, Land, Ocean, Urban, Sun Gallery, Hayward, California.
1997 Breakthrough Color, Editions Limited Gallery, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Spirit of Nature, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, California.
1996 Ahead of the Wave, Iris Arts, Berkeley, California.
Zipzap, Online Magazine, http://www.dnai.com/~zipzap.
Significants, Los Medanos College, Pittsburg, California.
ADA: Women and Information Technology, Artemisia Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.
1995 The World's Women On-Line, United Nations 4th World Conference on Women, Beijing, China.
Bayfront Gallery, San Francisco, California.
1994 Joanne Chappell Gallery, San Francisco, California.
1993 Pro Arts Gallery, Annual, Oakland, California (catalogue).
1991 3Com Corporation, Santa Clara, California.
1988 Los Medanos College Art Gallery, Pittsburg, California.
Pacific Grove Art Center, Pacific Grove, California.
Gallery 44, Oakland, California.
1987 Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, California (catalogue).
Lawson Gallery, San Francisco, California.
1986 San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, California.
1984 Lawson Gallery, San Francisco, California.
Ralph L. Wilson Gallery, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (catalogue).
Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, California.
South of Market Cultural Center, San Francisco, California.
1983 Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
Richmond Art Center, Richmond, California.
Walnut Creek Civic Arts Gallery, Walnut Creek, California.
Holy Names College Art Gallery, Oakland, California.
1982 Coos Art Museum, Coos Bay, Oregon.
Creative Growth Gallery, Oakland, California.
1980 Contemporary Artisans Gallery, San Francisco, California.
34th Annual San Francisco Arts Festival, San Francisco, California.
1979 33rd Annual San Francisco Arts Festival, San Francisco, California.
1978 Ligoa Duncan Gallery, New York, New York.
1977 Richmond Art Center, Richmond, California.
EDUCATION
University of California, Davis, California, Art Department, 1966-68.
University of California, Berkeley, California, Bachelor of Arts, 1972.
University of California, Riverside, California, Education Credential, 1973.
San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California, MA, Ceramic Sculpture, 1979.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Merritt College, Oakland, CA, 2000-present.
Berkeley City College, Berkeley, CA, 1980-2000.
California College of Arts, Extension Program, Oakland, CA, 1981
OTHER ART RELATED EMPLOYMENT
Juror: Oakland Art Association Exhibition, Oakland, CA, 2010.
Slide Lecture & Talk: "Sustaining A Creative Life" San Leandro Rotary Club, Oakland, CA, 2010.
Slide Lecture: California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS), San Francisco, CA, 2006.
Juror: Print and Video Festival, Berkeley City College, Berkeley, CA, 2005.
Juror: Los Medanos Student Art Show, 2000, Los Medanos College Art Gallery, Pittsburg, CA, 2000.
Juror: Los Medanos Student Art Show, 1999, Los Medanos College Art Gallery, Pittsburg, CA, 1999.
Juror: Printmaking: People and Process, California Society of Printmakers, Contra Costa College Gallery and On-Line Show, San Pablo, CA, 1997.
Faculty Advisor: Milvia Street Art and Literary Magazine, Berkeley City College, Berkeley, CA, 1995-97.
Juror: Ohlone College Art Student League Competition, Fremont, CA, 1995.
Slide Lecture: Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA, 1994.
Slide Lecture: JFK University, Orinda, CA, 1994.
Contributing Writer: Art In Focus, High School Art Textbook, Glencoe Publishing Company, Mission Hills, CA, 1992.
Contributing Writer: Exploring Art, Junior High Art Textbook, Glencoe Publishing Company, Mission Hills, CA, 1990.
Art Department Chair: Berkeley City College, Berkeley, CA, 1990-92.
Juror: 1985 Army Artist Contest, Presidio Army Base, San Francisco, CA, 1985.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
East Bay Express, Oakland, California, February 2008, Drastic Park by DeWitt Cheng (photo).
Tempo, Taos News, Taos, New Mexico, October 2007, Total Arts Gallery Review (photo).
Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto, California, August 2005, Art: Stanford Art Spaces, (photos).
Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California, August 2005, Art on Paper by Monique Beeler.
The Forum, California Community Colleges Publication, Sacramento, California, 1997.
TSA, Alameda, California, October 1993, Unlikely Collision: Art at CSPP by Richard Whittaker.
Pacific Grove Monarch, Pacific Grove, California, October 1988, Art Notes by Sam Colburn.
Contra Costa Times, Contra Costa, California, May 1988, Los Medanos Exhibit Explores the Art of Grief by Bonnie Ferguson.
San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco, California, January 1987, A Provocative Exhibition Put
Together Like A Chain Letter, Al Morch.
Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California, December 1983, Art Show Runs the Gamut From Awful to Glorious by Charles Shere.
Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California, August 1983, Crowded Talented Walnut Creek Show
by Charles Shere.
Contra Costa Times, Contra Costa, California, August 1983, Walnut Creek Exhibit Features Area Artists by Carol Fowler.
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