ARTIST STATEMENT
These pieces are part of a collection named Heartwork that include 9 total, all of which were made after a sudden widowmaker heart attack I was lucky to survive in late 2023. My mother and her father both died from a heart attack, and I was next in line at 44.
I made these in an attempt to: understand what happened inside me, accept that I should survive when many do not, learn how to better care for myself and other patients, reflect on life and death to determine my place today, and show care for others by helping them feel less alone and to be better prepared for heart disease affecting them or their loved ones.
Heart disease is the number one killer in the world and women have a difficult time surviving, mainly because symptoms are very different than those men experience and sometimes they go unrecognized by patients and caregivers.
Art helped me externalize and clarify complex thoughts and difficult feelings I was experiencing, which in turn helped me take better care of myself and take better care of my community.
“Listen” shares my personal symptoms and gives a visual of what they can look like from the outside, helping other women reflect on possible symptoms they or their loved ones may have. “Still Healing” shows the current state of my heart after the stent was placed, and “January” is about looking back on the past and forward to what I do with my future.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kimberleigh Collins-Peynaud is an artist and professional freelance sculpture conservator, currently living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Originally from Houston, Texas, she graduated from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey in 2001 with a BA in Visual Arts and Art History, obtained a “license” in Art History from the Universite Francois Rabelais in Tours, France in 2002, and received her Masters in Objects Conservation from the Ecole Superieure de beaux-arts de Tours in France in 2007. She has had her own business conserving and restoring sculptures and objects for museums and private clients around the world since 2007, both in France and the US. She is passionate about art, caring for it, and always looking for ways to create and share art in order to help others connect, past and present. She has also taught elementary integrated art for five years and is now concentrating on making more time for creating and sharing her own art with others. Her exhibit entitled “Heartwork” opened in February, 2025 at the Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah, where she was treated for a heart attack on November 11, 2023. Reproductions of the artwork are currently travelling on exhibit throughout the state in various Intermountain facilities in order to help the local communities better face heart disease.
© Kimberleigh Collins-Peynaud