We seem to search for empathy in places that lack both windows or doors.  We find affinity in the isolation of autonomy and search for a partnership that cannot exist.  Because, while one may see, the other cannot.

Kim creates monolithic beings, Forts, which I imagine have traveled alone since the onset of time.  They are followed by the shadows they cast, not from their shape but from the dots, dashes and crisscrossed lines of their unstopping movement. While they appear to float in their effortless progression, the drag marks in the road beg to differ, since these are the effects of walking with an unbalanced load.

I am repeatedly drawn to Kim’s work for many reasons but three of them for sure. First, her prints are irrefutably beautiful, second, they are filled with the secretes of an incredibly skilled print-maker and lastly, I am admittedly left wanting just a little more.  The more that I seek is the gift of her work, I yearn to go home to one of her forts and travel in its presence for as long as it will have me.

-Visual Arts Editor, Liz McDonald

Fort 11
etching/aquatint/chine colle
9″x 12″
2011

Fort 3
drypoint
111/2″ x 71/2″
2010

Fort 5
drypoint
12″x 9″
2010

Fort 7
drypoint
12″x 9″
2010

High Boy Fort
drypoint, chine colle, monotype
19″x 151/2″
2010

Walking Fort
drypoint
9″x 12″
2011

http://kimvansomeren.com/home.html