Kline fuses painting with sculpture to investigate human intimacy and totemic histories. Made from discarded and salvaged wood gathered in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and upstate NY, Kline’s works investigate the ritual of starting over by retrieving objects that have pre-existing histories and building a relationship with them. Raised in an immigrant and refugee family, Kline has an intimate knowledge of feeling discarded and forming fresh beginnings. Newly realized works nod to both recent and distant pasts, transforming Kline’s pieces into a collaboration with time itself. Rather than forcing the works into what the sculptor wants, the moments shared with each piece ignite a transformation. Once the wood has become familiar, Kline emphasizes texture with oil paint, wax, and pastels. Kline embraces rawness rather than hiding imperfection. Her sophisticated mark making appears both exploratory and refined, turning her scraps of wood into whimsical, figurative, and architectural stories. An overwhelming presence of family emerges and fades as you walk amidst the works, leaving space for individual interpretation. Ultimately, Kline’s work arrives at an intuitive place of stability, devotion, and balance. Both archival and newly born, the works build and transmit spiritual energy, and then pass it back and forth between object and viewer.
KIMIA KLINE z
Photographed by Carmen Chan
Kimia Ferdowsi Kline earned an M.F.A. at the San Francisco Art Institute and holds a B.F.A. in painting from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was awarded a full-tuition Danforth Scholarship. She has mounted solo exhibitions at Turn Gallery (New York), Marrow Gallery (San Francisco), The Elaine L. Jacobs Gallery at Wayne State University (Detroit) and 68 Projects (Berlin). Select group shows include Ceysson & Bénétière, The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, CANADA Gallery, PACE University, and The Drawing Center. In 2015 she was awarded a grant and residency through the New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2018 she was honored to be nominated for a Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Grant. Most recently, she is thrilled to be working on a monograph with Radius Books, set to release in 2022.Guest lectures and teaching include Yale University, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, SUNY Purchase, Lipscomb University, The Fashion Institute of Technology, Brooklyn College, Wayne State University, and Chautauqua Institute. 66
