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 In 2007, inspired by her empty walls, Kim Menzies picked up a paint brush and palette knife and began her first painting. Menzies was originally exposed to the idea of making paintings by an art therapist in 2004, who remarked on her black and white drawings, that she ought to try something in color. Taken by the reds, golds, browns and greens—colors she believes are ‘hot,’ and ‘sexy,’ she began to make work guided by the current thought or feeling. Experimenting with different techniques and mediums, her walls filled with paintings, and at the beginning of 2008, she sold her first piece.
In 2009, Menzies was invited to show a group of ten paintings at the Art Gallery of Regina in the “Outside the Box” series. A major preoccupation for Menzies in her work is vegetation, predominantly trees and roots, shrubs and cacti. Through her explorations of these subjects, her first body of work was made. She developed a storyline of paintings, entitled Life Insists—a series about connectedness as well as disconnectedness. She developed this series based on a work that depicted trees growing from roots that descend into concrete in front of high-rise buildings. It was about ‘the persistence’ of life in the city, the idea that plant life just endures and adapts. And the parallel, of course, is that so must we. The work poses the question, what quality of life is being gained from living on concrete as opposed to living on the softer, more accommodating, less challenging, more nourishing earth. Yet, it also addresses the issue of natural selection in the sense that where there are some organisms that survive, some don’t. Her work embraces environmental issues like these, pertaining to living beings.
Using acrylics on gallery style custom sized canvases, Menzies brushes, sprays, or applies with a palette knife and hands, to unravel the goings-on of her mind. Self-taught, she works intuitively, and produces prolifically. Accident, solitude, space and time are all important to her work. Layered and rich, her paintings have a depth that conveys the complexity of her mind.
Her new body of work, “Duality” is based on the subject of the harsh and the soft, delving into the issue of gender, and investigates the subject of femininity and masculinity as they exist more or less in all living things. These works exude emotion: joy, sorrow, anger, frustration, love etc. Light, dark, bright, somber, the works of Kim Menzies are varied, and based in honesty. These abstract paintings elude description, being subtly suggestive, but not definitive of their subject matter. The important challenge of her process is teaching herself something new, personally and professionally.
Represented at Henry Ripplinger’s Gallery in Regina, Menzies has had two solo exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Regina [in the ‘Outside the Box’ Series], as well as solo shows at Willow Studio and Bushwakkers in Regina. Menzies has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, among those of note are City of Art Gala’s 2009 and 2010, as well as at Artisan’s Alley in London, Ontario, and Turner Gallery in Bayfield, Ontario. She has pieces in over eighty collections, through sales and commissions.
By: Kris Brandhagen
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