Kim Harris
335 Bridge NW, 707
Grand Rapids, MI 49504
(616) 403-5187
kim.harris.vanderlende@gmail.com

Artist Statement
I find the act of painting most satisfying, especially with a painting knife. I love the sound of the knife scraping on the canvas, the springiness of the blade, and the give of the canvas as paint is smeared on the surface. The use of a painting knife instead of a brush feels like frosting a cake. I can add sweeps of color with a larger instrument and angular strokes with a smaller utensil. I can scrape and trowel, layer and build—filling a space that was once quiet, now awakening in a lively exchange.

I start with a toned canvas and work the entire area to establish shapes and tones. I focus on the negative shapes as well as the subject to develop the image. I want to cover the entire space with layers of paint—frosting my cake.

To give the paint an opacity and thickness, I mix it with a cold wax medium. It allows me to thickly layer the paint and scrape areas revealing the colors below, revealing past decisions, deconstructed marks, and impressions. The pieces titled Scissors and Silk Thread Waterfall show impressions where the object was originally found.

I seek to engage the colors with one another in a conversation on the canvas. I do this by creating a large palette of colors and many variations of each hue. I like to use an overall warm or cool palette on some pieces. For example, the piece titled Means I  has an overall cool temperature and low key value range, and Silk Thread Landscape also has a cool palette and high key tone. I also like to use extreme temperature shifts, such as the hot reflected light in the overall cool paintings, Figure Upright and Figure Reclining.

Scraping layers of paint produces a chronology of my thought process—a way of reading the piece as it was being made. Like a cake, the frosting does not reveal what is inside or what went into creating it, but cut it open and you will see. A slice of cake is nice, but the whole cake is the presentation, the meaning, the purpose.