KIM SOBEL

About the Artist

Working in her Glastonbury studio, Kim Sobel is immersed in nature. On one side is a wooded hill leading to diverse terrain: mowed fields, rocky ledges, a babbling brook. On the other side is a sprawling flower garden, rich in colors that are surprising to find in nature. Paths that wind circuitously around the property are bordered by tall grasses, disappear behind shrubs, and protected by ancient trees, allowing her to wander through the bucolic setting in the company of the myriad species of birds inhabitting the area. The garden tethers her to her childhood in rural Vermont and fosters her painting in direct response to the constant motion of her surroundings. Mixing paint is like pulling weeds and sculpting the garden like carving compositions. Nature shifts, forms change, lines evolve, colors mingle and dance. The more she paints, the closer she gets to understanding nature’s complexities. The elements are similar: the fluidity of water, the endless, jumbled tree roots with their pulsing forms intricately mingled. With clarity and command of color, Sobel’s paintings capture [freeze a moment in time in ] the always varying/ever changing phenomenon of nature.

Rainer Maria Rilke, "Innerness, what is it? If not heightened sky, scattered through with birds and deep from winds of hometurning." Summer, 1925

Sobel graduated with a BA from Hampshire College and then continued her education in New York where she received an MS from Bank Street College and an MFA from Hunter College, CUNY. In 2002, she moved from New York City to Connecticut where she now resides.

Sobel has shown her work locally, in New York City, and internationally. She had two solo shows in 2017: Walking the Wall at M Fine Arts Galerie, Boston, MA, and Shifting Surfaces at Pegasus Gallery and the Niche, Middlesex Community College, Middletown, CT. Her work has been shown recently at Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2017; Charter Oak Cultural Center, Hartford, CT (2016); Five Points Gallery, Torrington, CT (2015); in a group show curated by Harriet Korman at 490 Atlantic, Brooklyn, NY (2014); and ArtSpace Gallery, Hartford, CT (2013). Sobel taught painting at the New School, New York, and watercolor at Manchester Community College, Manchester, CT. In 2010, she received an Artist Fellowship Grant from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, and in 1998, was awarded a William GRAF Travel Abroad Scholarship from Hunter College.