Peter Clothier- The Buddah Diaries

Excerpt from The Buddah Diaries Sunday March 6, 2010
“….So let’s take a look at Kimberly’s work. She’s a proficient painter, mostly pictures of people in environments that could be called “genre paintings,” and she has been concentrating recently on portraiture in what she identifies as “The Stylist Project.” They are portraits, mostly, of women, presumably themselves stylists for the movies, advertising, or the fashion industry. I have to confess ignorance on this score. But they are, we sense, comfortable enough in the material aspect of their lives and for the most part in themselves, for who they are. They are in touch with their own sensuality, with the physical world, and clearly enjoy the pleasures of clothing, jewelry, shoes, ranging from high-end designer to art-world eccentric.
There is, in these portraits, certainly, a celebration of the feminine, a delight in the “style” these women create for themselves and project. At the same time, there is an awareness of the inherent paradox of “style”–that, while glamorous, it carries with it the seeds of its own superficiality, its attachment to outward appearances–which is implicit in what I take to be a hint of satire in these paintings. In making a “project” of the series, I’m assuming that the artist is wanting to discover, in the paintings, something about what these people share in common, how their passion for style is reflected in the way in which they present themselves to the world. What she arrives at is an observation of our culture that suggests a fascinating surface–and a disturbing depth.”