ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a published poet and novelist. I began working in collage to further indulge my fascination with story. From the start I’ve found it incredible how two distinct images – placed in proximity – can create a totally new and unexpected energy. For me it’s exactly like writing poetry. It’s this energy that I seek to harness in my collages.
Much of my work focuses on issues of gender expectations and historical and evolving perceptions of femininity and sexuality. I’m especially interested in the how these perceptions intersect with and undermine current societal realities. I almost always include photography in my pieces, sometimes digitally manipulated, often my own but also images from the early- and mid-20th century.
There is a lot of “fragmenting” in my collages: dissociated arms and legs; eyes peering or assessing or spying, mouth’s stuffed, agape, or blacked out. This is something that has just “happened” in my work: it seems to be where I land. No body is entirely intact. Figures are there and not there are the same time. My imagination tends toward the provocative – the visually arresting pairing or detail. A dapper business executive side-eyes a 16th-century Dutch girl, her left hand nested neatly over her belly. A deconstructed Eve in the garden brandishes a perfect, tiny, silver nipple ring. Compositions are abstracted — drawn from places I’ve known, sometimes through memory but also through my own photography. My palette is often muted, though — like life — shot through with small urgencies of color.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kim Triedman is a practicing visual artist and an award-winning poet and novelist. She works primarily in collage and paint and often uses her own photography in her pieces. Much of her work focuses on issues of gender expectations and historical perceptions of femininity and sexuality. Triedman’s pieces have been shown widely in one and two-person shows and small group shows throughout the United States and garnered numerous juror’s awards and mentions. Most recently, she received the Juror’s Award at the 2022 National Collage Society Exhibition in Ohio. In 2018, she curated and participated in the show “Waste Not,” which was featured as the cover story for ArtScope Magazine (Nov/Dec 2018). She has also been the “Featured Artist” in ArtScope Magazine (Jan/Feb 2022). She has published three collections of poetry and a novel.
© Kim Triedman