MYND TOO

The Schomburg Gallery presents new encaustic paintings and assemblages by Laura Kimpton. By re-contextualizing old "junk" and utilizing personal imagery and word-play Kimpton addresses issues of the self and modern day womanhood.

Kimpton claims her father, Bill Kimpton was an installation artist aside from being a formidable businessman known for his inventive and extremely successful "boutique" hotels. From father to daughter, Laura Kimpton's artwork thrives with the same sense of inventiveness and vitality. Discarded objects such as antique toys, suitcases, and statuary join illustrations of women, images of birds in flight, paint and encaustic wax.

The sheer force of intimacy that distinguishes Kimpton's work is equaled by its formal composition that presents and juxtaposes fading moments like the antique photographs she often employs in her paintings and assemblages. The exhibit will include a work built on an early photograph of her father, printed in large format and adding to her practice of using highly personal images and ideas while also recognizing her father's influence on her style.

The exhibition entitled "Mynd Too", its obvious word play referring to a reclamation of her own mind, is planned in conjunction with the Rauschenberg exhibition as a small homage to the artist. Kimpton's use of non-traditional materials is a refreshing continuation of Rauschenberg's experimentation in the 60's and 70's while updating the collective quest of that era, to find one's self.

Laura Kimpton received a BFA in from The San Francisco Art Institute, and an MA in Counseling Psychology at The University of San Francisco. She currently resides in the Bay Area, not far from her father's first legendary hotels in San Francisco. Having gained recognition for her work by distinguished art collector Rene di Rosa through his choice of her work as "Best of Show" and an award at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santa Rosa,CA, Kimpton has established herself as a promising and unique contemporary artist.