This week’s artist of the week is one I have been a fan of for a long time, so I am excited to introduce you to her work. I first wrote about her years ago during her foray into fashion, when she was transforming scarves into beautiful resort-wear-style halter tops. Everyone was swooning over them. Gorgeous. I went to her beautifully appointed home, and I still remember seeing framed photos of boat interiors she had designed. It was obvious this woman had a natural talent for creating incredible aesthetics.
Years later, I found her again while she was lending her considerable talents to my favorite event décor company, PJ Hummel. Some of the most incredible theme parties I have attended in Tacoma were curated by PJ Hummel, so I was not surprised at all when they tapped Kim Alexander to join the team.
In this current season of her creative life, Alexander has been showing up on our social media feeds with paintings that feel fully realized and deeply personal, often letting people watch her process unfold. She is also the featured artist at Proctor Art Gallery through February, which made this a perfect moment to catch up and share what some already know. This is an artist worth following. (We told you so in our 2024’s Top 10 List).
Here is how she describes first recollection of her own artistry, “An oil painting of a clown I did when I was about twelve and I still have it,” she says. The painting captured something she was working through at the time. Her family had just moved, and she was adjusting to a new home and a new school. “I’m an introvert and have struggled with shyness most of my life, and looking back, the sadness in the eyes really shows what I was working through at the time.”
That same painting was also the first piece someone ever wanted to buy. She agreed, then changed her mind. “I just couldn’t let it go,” she says. That instinct remains. “Even now, I find it much easier to part with a piece if I know the person and the place it will be calling home.”
Alexander is a Washington State native who grew up in a generational logging family, spending her childhood immersed in forests, mountains, lakes, and beaches. “I have a deep connection to nature, and it shows up in my work through vivid color, dynamic light, and a sense of movement and flow in the line.”
Asked to describe her process, she says, “Lay a color and a brushstroke down, then let it lead me to the next one and see where it goes. Granted, sometimes I end up somewhere I maybe shouldn’t have, but it’s always an adventure. I try to capture the mood between what’s seen and what’s felt,” she says, “when realism starts to soften and emotion takes over.” She describes herself as a lifelong observer, paying attention to how environments and details hold mood, history, and memory.
For many years, her visual language looked very different. From her teens through her twenties, Alexander worked extensively in large-format murals. Design school training in black-and-white drafting and model making led to sculptural oil and mixed-media pieces built up on canvas, often in a restrained palette. “Whites, tans, grays, and black,” she says.
Then something shifted.
“About three years ago, after finding myself divorced and with an empty nest, I pulled my paints out as a way to get through the emotional upheaval,” she says. What came out surprised her. “I was genuinely shocked by the explosion of color that came out—along with a new combination of imagined and realistic elements. It felt like a completely new visual language emerging.”
That shift is especially visible in the floral paintings currently on view at Proctor Art Gallery. “The florals from this current period naturally lend themselves to vivid color and fluid line,” she says, “but beneath them is a deeper examination of zooming in.” She points out that the buds in Widow’s Thrill in Persimmon are, in reality, only about an eighth to a quarter of an inch in size. Morning Kissed Hydrangea focuses on a single bloom within an entire cluster.
Kim Alexander’s work is currently featured at Proctor Art Gallery through February. You can follow her work and process on Instagram at @kimberlyalexander_art.home.
