Artists: A - G: Kim Beck

Are these the willful remnants of an arcadian past? Evidence of nature's struggle against a growing asphalt sea? Or a developer's attempt to prevent a driver's dizzying fear of wide-open spaces? The islands of trees growing in parking lots accumulate, in my new body of work, into discreetly parceled urban forests. Sometimes they appear isolated in solitary moments of focus – the cracks in their cement barriers, the awkwardness of untrimmed growth revealing a hidden pressure on expectations. It should look more exacting, more perfect, cleaner, and neater – but it doesn't. These join the landscapes of my previous work: fragments of places perceived at the margins, noticed but not seen, a particular weedy lot or a span of crushing fast-food signs along highways -- landscapes that occur between the natural environment and one shaped by commerce. In the abstracted, accumulated, silhouetted images of architecture, weeds, billboards, ugly distractions are transformed into objects of desire, or at the very least, consideration. By drawing attention to these peripheral moments, my work brings the banal and everyday into focus, renders the overlooked, stepped on, and unseen parts of our world– visible.

Kim Beck grew up in Colorado. She has exhibited at the Walker Art Center, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Smack Mellon, Socrates Sculpture Park and Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center among other prestigious venues. She recently completed the Space Program at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation and she’s held other residencies at Yaddo, International Studio & Curatorial Program, Cité Internationale des Arts, Vermont Studio Center and VCCA. She has received awards and fellowships from ARS Electronica, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Thomas J. Watson Foundation and the Heinz Foundation. Her artist’s book, A Field Guide to Weeds, published through the

Printed Matter Emerging Artist Publishing Program, is in its second edition. She received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and BA from Brandeis University. She is currently developing a site-specific installation for the High Line that will debut later this year.