Kim Sweet: MFA Art Thesis Exhibition
The Small Things In Between
Opening Reception: May 5, 6 - 9pm
Exhibition on view: May 6 - 13
USC Roski Graduate Gallery
LOCATION:
USC Roski School Graduate Building
1262 Palmetto Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
Opening Reception reservations here.
Gallery hours: Wed - Sat, 12 - 5pm
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
In The Small Things In Between, artist Kim Sweet invites her audience to contemplate their place in the world and meditate on the echoes of once vibrant memories lost to time. The artist utilizes the landscape as a point of departure to venture beyond her physical setting and delve into the layers of nostalgia embedded within it. Through her time spent on the road between Los Angeles and Phoenix over the last two years, Sweet draws upon the notion that a landscape is not a fixed representation of nature but a constructed reflection of the viewer's inner and outer reality. Sweet's paintings serve as a visual embodiment of the intangible and ephemeral nature of memory, just within reach yet ever elusive. On the canvas, she distills the emotional core of a fleeting moment and creates an atmospheric yet nuanced mood with a muted and almost monochromatic color palette. By juxtaposing the rigid structure of the grid with the organic forms of nature, Sweet blurs the lines between order and familiarity. The large-scale works pull the viewer into the scene, allowing them to experience the innermost essence of a place alongside the artist. In her mastery of the medium, Sweet gracefully portrays the landscape not merely as an earthly setting but as a repository of emotions, narratives, and memories, beckoning us to explore the depths of our own recollections.
-Essay by Nadia Estrada, curator.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Kim Sweet is a Los Angeles-based artist with deep ties to Phoenix, Arizona. Her paintings explore the temporality of human existence and are visual representations of the echoes of consciousness. The grid that is often imposed on or buried into the paintings points to humanity’s awareness of “the world” and how we are both part of and separate from it. Through the intersection of the natural landscape and the human-constructed grid, Sweet seeks to make sense of our small place within the vastness of cosmic time.
Kim Sweet earned her BFA from RISD in painting and was a member of the Phoenix artist collective The Eye Lounge Gallery. Her work is currently represented by Fine Arts Complex 1101 in Tempe, Arizona, and Cole Pratt Gallery in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has been featured in Art and Cake.