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Kimi Walters

Being mixed-race, multi-cultural and bilingual, I often struggle with the notion of my identity being “in-between”. Instead, I want to highlight the fact that I am a combination of many things. I am not a watered-down version of each ethnicity, but a person with a combination of multiple cultures and layers of identity. This is why I tend to focus on layers within my work— I believe it helps to convey how I understand my own mixed identity.

I am often inspired by the works of artists such as Joanne Nam, Audra Auclaire, and Ana Godis. I aspire to create artwork like theirs: faintly eerie scenes that seem directly out of dreams. I am also inspired by the creative storytelling in animated works such as “Over the Garden Wall”, “Adventure Time”, and movies by Studio Ghibli. These animations combine a familiar, pleasing style with a strange subject matter to creates a dream-like quality. These artworks prompt me to consider creating scenes that look like they are from fantasy stories.

My undergraduate career has been full of experimenting and finding what inspires me most. In the future, I would like to continue focusing on layering within my artwork in new ways. I have always understood painting as a cumulation of layers, and since elevated this idea through the use of collage. Next, I would like to work with painting on different layers of resin or other clear material to add more depth to the paintings.

Kimiwalters.com @kimiwaltersart

Pop up book 1
Kimi Walters
2019
Medium: Colored pencil, ink, paper, cardboard, fabric, glue
Dimensions: 9”x12”

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Portrait:

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