KimMobey
Artist’s Statement
Human connection drives me. I want to invite myself into the space of my subjects, learning about them at least as much as I project my own subjective view onto them. Context is the only other factor that directs my work. The situation, mindset and history of my subjects are the very things that define them. These things also connect my subject and myself to the viewer, and I feel like a mediator in a wordless conversation; a situation I find both powerful and addictive.
In my most recent work, I explore what modern Africa means to the myriad people who live here. I assimilate photographs, fabrics, art and videos from all over the continent and try to explore and immerse myself in my subject’s world through painting and sculpture. I hybridise the images within my own subjective world view, warping them to unbalance perceptions of age, race, gender and modernity.
My current work is about the beauty and paradoxes of modern Africa and the drive to transcend the tired stigma of the romanticised, colonial and primitive African. We live in a modern world where race, religion, ethnicity and even gender roles are fluid.
Kim Mobey’s work focuses on global histories and contemporary cultural and political cross-pollination.
Her work is spread equally between traditional media and materials and experimental applications of new materials, techniques and mixed media including collage, calcite printing, experimental resin casting, audio and video
Entirely self-taught, she works prolifically in a wide variety of new and traditional media. Her large body of work is held in private collections on every continent and in over 20 countries.
Selected Publications and Press
2004 October – Yale Free Press “Political Art”
2014 March – Cape Argus “Political Art”
2014 June – AllAfrica .com Biography
Selected Exhibitions
Group
2003 – Glimore Gallery, “Untitled” Cape Town
2003 – Glimore Gallery “Hands”, Cape Town
2005 – Barnes Fair, London
2012 – Western Cape Premier, Official Residence “See the Point, Darling” Cape Town
2013 – Knysna Fine Art Gallery “Pink Loerie Show”, Knysna
2014 – Grand Daddy Group Show, Cape Town
2015 – MOMO Gallery “Les is more” Johannesburg
2017 – The Architect, PPC Imaginarium Finalist show, Cape Town
2017 – The V&A Watershed, Inaugural Art Africa Fair, Cape Town
2017 – The Cape Gallery “Dream Now, Dream Not”, Cape Town
Solo
2003 December – Glimore gallery – Cape Town “Nudes”
2011 November – Knysna Art Gallery – Knysna “Anywhere but Here”
2015 March – Gallery Lala, New York “African Portraits”
Curator
2004 February – Glimore gallery “Participatory Art – The Charity Auction” Cape Town
2012 May – The Knysna Gallery “The Naked Truth”, Knysna
2014 September to December – “Grand Daddy” Group Show, Cape Town
Competitions
2017 January – Sculpture Finalist, PPC Imaginarium Awards
Private Residencies
2004 January / February, – Glimore Gallery Artist in residence, Cape Town
2011 October / December – Lake Pleasant
2013 July / August – 2 month studio residency. The Framery, Cape Town
Oct 2013 / March 2014 – “Work in Progress ” Church Street Studios, Cape Town
Charitable Projects
2014 – City of Cape Town, World Design Center “Hands of Honour” Part of the “Man on the Side of the Road” employment initiative
2014 – City of Cape Town, World Design Center “WDC/MURP Co-design workshop” facilitating community involvement in urban upliftment in impoverished areas
2016 – The AfrAsia Bank Cape Wine Auction, Cape Town, Groot Constantia Wine Farm in aid of education in the South African Winelands
2014 (Ongoing)- Paint it Forward – A collective of artists painting uplifting murals in the children’s wards of public hospitals
2014 (Ongoing) – Call to Care “Paint and Sip” fundraising for sustainable food gardening workshops in impoverished areas
