Exhibitions

Kimberly Trowbridge

Framing Perception

Framing Perception, a solo exhibition by Seattle-based artist Kimberly Trowbridge, presents her unique approach to image-making and constructing personal narratives.

© 2015 Kimberly Trowbridge, Framing Perception, Installation shot. Courtesy of the artist.
  • April 2 - 30, 2015
  • Opening: Thursday, April 2

Trowbridge’s art is self-referential. She synthesizes experience through multiple layers of perception and media. Trained as a painter, she has made a practice of breaking down that discipline’s customary constraints to combine set-like installation, video, and performance with traditional oils on canvas.

Framing Perception is inspired by a recent artist residency in Portugal. Capturing the magical light of a splendid rural setting, there is a Cézanne-like quality to Trowbridge’s plein-air paintings, paintings that serve as documentary footage to record her experience. Video, capturing the artist wandering through the gardens of the residency site, conveys the sublime experience of creating in this pastoral setting. The video imagery, in turn, provides rich source material for the paintings.

Kimberly Trowbridge’s art practice ultimately examines the nature of presentation. She states “I am at an exciting moment in my career where I am using installation as a way to present my paintings within a specific context. By situating paintings within a larger theater of interactions I am able to grapple with and expand the capabilities of my vocabulary, and thus the scope of my content…. By pushing the boundaries of painting into installation, I am asking my viewers to step-into a space where they can engage with my process of building a visual language.”


About the Artist

Kimberly Trowbridge received her MFA from the University of Washington and BFA from Indiana University. She was a 2014 Neddy Award Finalist in Painting and a 2014 Artist Trust GAP recipient. Trowbridge has had solo exhibitions at galleries including The Painting Center in NYC, and Blindfold Gallery in Seattle, and has been included in numerous group shows nationally. She is an instructor and lecturer on figure painting and color theory and has taught at the University of Washington, Western Washington University, and Gage Academy of Art. For the past six years, she has run a private painting school called Top Hat Studio in south Seattle, and leads international plein-air painting tours in Spain and Portugal. In fall 2015, she will launch the Trowbridge Atelier, a contemporary painting intensive, through Gage Academy of Art in Georgetown.