Back in 2010 I gave my second ever presentation as an artist-speaker, called Daily Practices for Artists, looking at the tremendous value they have for our creativity and our “real” work, the forms they can take, how to figure out one that is both appealing and suits your circumstances.

So recently I decided to take my own advice (haha)... again.

I revived an old, not-quite-daily practice from 2009, my Colour Diary. Over the course of ~100 installments, I mixed and painted maybe 1,000 or more colours, into stripes of various widths. 

The original project evolved over time, and ultimately changed me. I never looked at colour the same way again. I was never as limited in my colour thinking (or colour experience) as I was before the Colour Diary.

Each page was improvised. I would begin with a starting point – one day it was the colour of the peanut butter I’d looked at over breakfast – and then respond. 

They also became composed paintings in that I would not work left to right, I would decide on a position and width (they were always vertical stripes on a horizontal piece of water-colour paper, of identical size each time), and both respond to the colours already mixed and applied and to the relative sizes and positions.

Occasionally I would play specific formal colour games, whether out of curiosity or because I didn’t feel inventive enough that day.​

Coming back to the New Colour Diary (or Covid Colour Diary), it was an appealing idea to return to it, to play almost entirely with colour again.

Life has been very demanding, between the pandemic situation, the resulting overhaul of our (my husband’s and my) business(es), family medical crises, personal health issues and on and on.

All of that has made time for studio practice difficult and irregular, but it is essential to my well-being, never mind my professional practice! A bite-sized daily practice is exactly what circumstances demanded.

My first change to the original project was to make it digital, so it would be a manageable time commitment for me. Then as soon as I thought that, I knew I wanted to give it a dedicated Instagram account, to share it with the world, or at least that tiny part of the world that either knows or stumbles across me.

So that is where you will find me, posting these little colour meditations, every day whenever possible. My first goal is 100 days, as in #100daysofcolour, and then we’ll see after that.

You can visit it here (even without an Instagram account): 
​https://www.instagram.com/kims.colour.diary/
​Just click on an image to see it larger.

If you have any trouble viewing it there, I have a Flickr album as well, though I do not update it daily:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmR7BVqf

I hope you will check it out, and that you’ll enjoy it!

I am hard at work preparing for my solo show 'Kim-Lee Kho: A Full Heart' at Cedar Ridge Creative Centre March 9–21, 2019. The opening reception will be Sunday, March 10, 1–4pm.

All the prints are made, including the two large new ones (scroll down for a sneak peek of one of them), which I can't wait to see up and share with everyone who's able to visit!

The gallery at Cedar Ridge comprises three main rooms in a historic mansion owned and run by the City of Toronto. There is dark wood trim and features everywhere, a big old fireplace, high ceilings (around 12ft), and baseboards that are at least a foot tall. Full of character, this is a very different kind of space than any I've shown in before.

Because the rooms are full of complications like multiple doorways, built-in bookcases, areas of windows and a big fireplace; and because this is my biggest solo show ever, where I'll be presenting up to 40 pieces/objects, a scale model was absolutely essential to help me plan.

My favourite and always-generous helper Kal Honey put it together for me then helped me plan and curate the show.

Following a site visit when we check and tested a number of aspects, particularly related to hanging methods and details about the space, there will be some adjustments made to our plan. That's why the final number of works isn't quite settled.

I'm continue to work on a sculpture that I hope to include in the show, (working with chicken wire so my hands are getting rather scratched despite mostly wearing gloves), and there are still so many details to look after!

If you can join us for the opening this Sunday, or visit the show anytime through Thursday March 21, I'd be delighted! Hope you can make it!

Please share any questions or comments below.

Cedar Ridge Creative Centre
225 Confederation Drive
Toronto, ON  M1G 1B2
(416) 396-4026

'Hearts Are Wild' is still on display at Renann Isaacs Contemporary Art in Guelph, Ontario, but it will soon be joining the substantial art collection of the Morrison family in England, where it will be in the company of Peter Blake, Picasso and countless other wonderful artists' works.

Needless to say I am right chuffed about it!







Acrylic on wood panel, 12' x 12", 2016.
This is the first time I've posted a complete view of the painting online. Click on the image to see a larger view.

Here is a detail from my new painting "Hearts are Wild" now showing in 'RED' an exhibition which opened yesterday (Saturday January 30) at Renann Isaacs Contemporary Art in Guelph, Ontario. 

'RED' is a group show of square-foot paintings by 50+ artists, all united by the colour red. 

Among the group are artists I know and admire such as Kal Honey, Cole Swanson and Seth as well as luminary Ron Shuebrook, so I'm in excellent company! 

If circumstances weren't preventing me, I would be working on more paintings in this vein (so to speak). I'll just have to figure out how I can keep thinking along these lines but in my sketchbook instead until I can get back into my studio.

If you have a chance to visit the show, please let me know what you think, whether in the comments below or via the contact form or on social media. It's worth the drive to Guelph!

This acrylic painting has been built up in layers of textured, "open" or broken colour, creating a kind of transparency. The circles and squares create a strong pattern structure but none of the edges are too regular, too crisp, which keeps the painting dynamic.
 
Just photographed today before sending it off. Click on the image above to see a better view of it.

EARLIER STAGES:

Today is the first day that '27 Phases' is on public display – online and at Neilson Park Creative Centre, in the Hall Gallery.

Started in 2012, I got close to finishing but got busy and work stalled. It was some time before I could get back to enriching and re-balancing these colour relationships, made complex by all layers being open to the ones below.

In 2014 with the Offence/Defence show behind me, I was finally able to complete the painting.

Because I've been hard at work getting ready for my 'Chains Unlinked' show (opening at the Art Gallery of Mississauga on July 2), I have had less time than normal to write my blog posts.

Even though I need to keep this one short and sweet, I thought it would be fun to share a sneak peek at something I am actually this evening (as I write this) in the middle of working on.

This is just an appetizer. A number of you will recognize seeing this kind of imagery from me before. I'm optimistic that the final form for this one will be a little dramatic.

If it works out, I will post a shot of the final piece here, but it will probably be in a few weeks' time.

Let me know what you think in the comments below. And thanks for taking a look!

Patterns, both visual and not, are something our brain puts a high priority on recognizing. Spotting deviations from patterns or expected behaviours is an important aspect of plenty of jobs and professions, such as nurses, doctors, air traffic controllers, and many technical monitoring-type jobs etc.

When I teach patterns to my students I describe them as “orderly repetitions of elements”. If they weren't orderly or repetitions then they couldn't be the “expected behaviours” I mentioned.

The chain link fencing that I've been working with for a while now is a great visual element in part because strong pattern is fundamental to what it is. That's partly why I enjoy finding ways of deconstructing it or making it behave in unexpected ways, such as in my 'Insubstantiated' drapery panel, or the 'Ecdysis' portion of 'Skin/Ecdysis'.

Playing with that will also be the basis for my upcoming exhibition Chains Unlinked at the Art Gallery of Mississauga this summer (opens July 2).

Lately though I've been thinking about the construction of patterns and what they could be made from.

The image at the top of this page is a new piece or working file of a photo-based pattern (self-portrait with chain link) constructed in a way that it forms a lattice structure not unlike chain link itself. I love how the pattern takes priority over the content of its elements at a certain point (when the scale is right).

And just because I can't leave it alone, it gave me pleasure to warp the pattern so it behaved a little like the drapery panel.