ABOUT

Danielle Kimzey is terrible at keeping scrap books or putting together photo albums for her family. But what she does do is keep a sketchbook where she collects her thoughts, emotions and sketches throughout the year. Into this sketchbook go descriptions of what’s going on day to day, funny quotes or milestones of her kids, drawings they make to stay entertained, household minutiae, quick gesture sketches of the movement all around her or longer drawings if someone will sit still, and a tally of the books she is reading. Fearing that one day she’ll never be able to remember anything, she sketches or writes it all down. She is constantly thinking about time and our relationships with one another across generations, how we maintain connections with those we have lost and what we will leave for those to come. She is inspired by the work of her grandmothers and mother, designers and a photographer in their own right, whose voices reverberate in their images and style that continues to influence their family. From the ephemera of the sketchbook she pulls out significant images and moments she’d like to explore further. Things that ring across time, that resonate with the past and present and recall something in the depth of her being. These become the early matter of the painting, upon which she builds a composition by layering and rearranging endless combinations of colors and shapes, searching and analyzing until she has found the essence of what drew her to the moment in the first place. As if creating a puzzle while completing it, she finds the final form of the painting as the last piece moves into place.

Kimzey is an artist who lives and works in Dallas, TX. She has a BFA in Drawing from Southern Methodist University and an MFA in Painting from the University of Iowa. She has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center and the Nemeth Art Center in Minnesota. In 2012 she was the Artist in Residence at Knox College, where she had a solo show at the Box Gallery and painted a large mural in downtown Galesburg, IL. In 2020, her design for a 30 foot tall Living Wall in West Palm Beach, Florida was realized at 205 Datura Street. Recently her work has been shown at The Painting Center in New York, The Hawn Gallery at SMU, St. Ambrose University, and Northpark Mall. Danielle lives in East Dallas with her husband, a writer, and her three kids. She runs the Art Cottage in Little Forest Hills and teaches Painting at Brookhaven College.