KIM-LEE KHO
  • Home
  • Gallery
    • 2025 Facial Expressions >
      • Crumpled 11
    • Burnt Offerings (2023)
    • Burnt Offerings (2022) >
      • Sponsors: Thank you
    • My Father's Things (series)
    • Heartspace
    • A Full Heart
    • Subject to Limitation >
      • Boxed In
      • Expanding Media
      • Fences as Barriers
      • Containment
    • Skin
    • Face[t]s
    • [Un]Settled
    • Digital / Photo / Mixed
    • Painting
    • To See More
  • SHOP 📦
  • Courses & Events
    • Current + Upcoming
    • Virtual Studio Parties
    • Gallery Walk & Talks
    • Testimonials
  • Blog
    • News Archive
  • ABOUT
    • Biography
    • Statement
    • CV
    • Publications/Media
  • Contact

Final Week to See Heartspace & Thank You to My Sponsors

11/17/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
Heartspace, my debut solo exhibition at The Red Head Gallery, is in its final week this Weds–Sat noon–5pm. I will be there for the final Saturday (Nov 23) all afternoon, or as close to it as I can manage!

After that the work comes down except for some of the small works which will be part of the group show that follows right after mine, #foxypopup.

Heartfelt thanks to my amazing sponsors!

I have thanked my sponsors in print at the show itself, but it's about time I thanked them here on my website.

They took some pressure off, lightening the load on my mind as I headed into, and worked away in, my studio, and they also made some things possible, thereby helping to make this show as interesting and diverse as my ideas called for.

Here are my generous sponsors: 
  • Miriam Snell
  • Josef (Joe) Rich
  • Abigail Johnson
  • Joanna Czub
  • The Conspiracy to Promote Artists
  • Ruth Austin
  • Nancy Moniz
  • Lindsay Isaac
  • Anne Cook
I also owe a very special thanks to Kal Honey, who helps me in every way imaginable. Thanks also to Tim Marshall who along with Kal installed the show so I feel happy every time I look at it!

Installation views of Kim-Lee Kho: Heartspace at The Red Head Gallery through Nov 23, 2019.

My Heartspace solo exhibition is in its final week, continuing through Saturday, November 23 at The Red Head Gallery.

​I'll be there in person on the final day, come and say hi! Open noon–5pm.
1 Comment

My Hearts in Place Installation, Part Two

12/16/2018

2 Comments

 
Picture
A screenshot from the video below showing an early stage of the installation process. Artwork: Kim-Lee Kho. Video: Nettie Seip 2018
Instead of writing more in this second blog post about my installation at the In Situ 2018 festival, (to see part one click here), I will speak to you via the video below, shot and edited by my charming colleague photographer/videographer Nettie Seip, to whom I owe many thanks!

You'll see me on-site in the room during the early stages of installation as I talk about the work and my intentions for it. Then you get to tour through it at night with it fully installed while the festival was in progress.

​Please take a look and let me know what you think! 

Perhaps after the holidays I will put together some time-lapse video shot over the three nights I spent drawing the Hearts in Place mural in front of the festival audience. I will upload it to my YouTube channel – please click on the link and if you like it, consider subscribing :-)
Video shot and edited by Nettie Seip, www.nettiephotography.com
2 Comments

'Hearts in Place': My Installation at In Situ 2018, Part One

11/30/2018

4 Comments

 
Picture
'Hearts in Place', my room installation at the 2018 In Situ Festival. Most of the room is shown, but you can't see what's at the back centre, behind the "veined" panels, nor what's behind me as I photographed this. All artwork: Kim-Lee Kho, this photo: Kim-Lee Kho
Part two of this blog series is up!
​To go directly to it, click here.


The 2018 In Situ multi-arts festival took place November 8–10 at the Small Arms Inspection Building (a former WWII munitions factory now partially refurbished as a creative hub) in Mississauga, Ontario.

'Hearts in Place' was a whole-room installation comprised of: ten 7-foot high scrolls, eight of which were transfer-printed (a hand-pulled process), two were hand-painted; two paper-and-fibre "veined" panels (centre); two veiling textile panels; one built-onsite sculpture/assemblage which you can see a sliver of light from at the centre of this photo; and the wall behind me as I photographed the room panorama was a mural drawing which I drew a portion of as a live performance each of the three evenings of the festival.

Like the first In Situ festival in 2016, this was an extraordinary experience and a creative high, but with the benefit of central heating and running water!

I am still exhausted from the experience of preparing all of this new work, performing and then taking it all down just days later. As a result I will keep this entry shorter than I might have, but will share with you some photographs. Thanks go to the numerous – generous – photographers and friends, (all credited individually), who made this possible, documenting when I could not.

​Many thanks to the many people who came out to experience the festival and visited my room! If you were there, please let me know what you thought in the comments below.
Picture
Photo: Kim-Lee Kho 2018
Picture
Photo: Jennifer Vong
Kim-Lee Kho stands in front of a 8-foot whimsical heart sculpture made of rope lights, curving silver tubes, metal mesh and tree branches, and next to a very large close up of a face, backlit.
Picture
Hearts in Place installation artwork by Kim-Lee Kho, 2018. Photo (left): Sandra Robson, photo (above): Kal Honey.
Picture
Photo: Gabriella Bank from Sanborg Productions Inc
Picture
Photo: Elaine Whittaker
Picture
Photo: David Ahn
Picture
Picture
Photo: David Ahn
4 Comments

Keeping Uncanny Company at the Power Plant Exhibition

9/5/2017

3 Comments

 
Picture
Mute witnesses still sitting at attention but lost to us, as if frozen by the last testimony they saw and heard. Standing in front of this blind yet staring audience felt distinctly odd. | All photos by Kim-Lee Kho

On Sunday I went to The Power Plant in Toronto to catch the Ydessa Hendeles show ‘The Milliner’s Daughter’ before it closed a day later. I went because an artist friend of mine, Victoria Cowan, pointed out its connection to what I do. 

There were many rooms of work, each with a different story to tell. What struck me most strongly at first was how extraordinary the objects were, gathered by Hendeles over many years – a lifetime even.

Some items such as the numerous vitrines and two pairs of oversized pince-nez, were exquisitely crafted, as were the focus of my visit: the truly amazing collection of mannequins.

'Containment' is a sculpture installation, featuring photo-digital figures in light boxes, that grew out of my 'Boxed In' series, pictured below. Click here to see more.

Some were tiny miniatures some life sized or larger; some mechanical toys, but most the kind used by artists to this day.

The combinations, poses, containment or not, scale contrasts whether between figures or between a figure and the furniture it was placed on, they all set up narrative possibilities, which were hard for the brain to resist.

The uncanny feeling of these articulated dolls comes from the conflict between our cognitive understanding that yes, of course these are inanimate, often very stylized mannequins, but on the other hand how life-like their presence was.

It was very interesting to me as someone who teaches figure and portrait to note how little our brains need to register something as a human being, much like the instances of well-known, often religious figures' faces being found on pieces of toast or a stain on a wall.

​As for the connection to my work, some of which is pictured here, I think I’ll let it speak for itself except to say these ‘Boxed In’ figure works formed the basis for a broader range of work and media concerned with barriers, boundaries and constraints, both physical and not.

​That formed the basis for my Chains Unlinked show at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, the mural portion is pictured here. It was also the origin of my 'Containment' installation at In Situ in 2016, particularly the drawers-turned-to-lightboxes, with solitary figures and faces inside, like the one shown here.

What do you think, what connections do you see? Did you see either show? Please let me know in the comments below.
Picture
Ydessa Hendeles at The Power Plant.
Examples of my Boxed In figures above and below.
Picture
Boxed In #21 (mural) 2015 | Photo: Tony Hafkenscheid
Picture
One of many drawer-lightboxes from ‘Containment’ 2016
3 Comments

Whether Art or Ornament, the Universal Fascination of Miniatures

8/20/2017

0 Comments

 
Whether you have a long-dormant love of model railroads or can't resist dollhouses and their tiny furnishings, you're far from alone in loving miniatures. I grew up with my own dollhouse made of printed steel, but rather jealous of my cousin who had a big table in his basement devoted to his model railroad, set in a landscape he'd made and populated by exquisitely detailed buildings and street scenes.

A couple of years ago in pursuit of materials for some miniature projects (still on the drawing board) I visited, on my friend Fred's recommendation, The Credit Valley Railway Company, a truly amazing place with aisle upon aisle of trains, other vehicles, and buildings of different eras, human figures, street furniture, vegetation – even different kinds of grasses! Investigating those aisles was such an engrossing way to spend a couple of afternoons.

Plenty of artists love miniatures, miniature painting is quite a tradition, particularly in south Asia and Iran to my knowledge, but some artists either create dimensional miniatures or use the kind I drooled over at the store as their raw material.

Sculptor Kim Adams, 2014 winner of a Governor General's Award in Visual Art (click to view his award page), is one such artist whose work I particularly admire. His elaborate installations a few years ago at the Art Gallery of Ontario (click to view a slideshow from that work) were fascinating.
What got me thinking about this topic recently was an article in The Guardian about sculptor/miniature artist Randy Hage who has done a whole series in which he has re-created old New York City storefronts with amazing detail, right down to the litter, the papered-over windows and the inevitable graffiti.

​On his site (click to link to it) you can see side-by-side comparison photos of the shot he took of the actual storefront and his 1/12 scale miniature. Beautiful work! Below is a time-lapse as he makes one storefront “Ideal Hosiery”.
Finally there's an epic miniature museum project in Mississauga/Oakville called Our Home & Miniature Land where they are painstakingly re-creating Canada in miniature, starting with Toronto and Hamilton. Click here or on their name to check out their site. The project is not complete yet, though they have had a public open house, but the videos of their progress are amazing! Below are a couple of samples to whet your appetite. I can't wait to see it all in person!
How about you? Are you a miniatures geek whether secretly or proudly? Did you have a dollhouse or model railroad when you were growing up, or make other kinds of models?

​If so, please tell me about them in the comments below!
0 Comments

Why You'll Find My Head in the Clouds So Often

12/30/2016

0 Comments

 
It's taken me a long time but I realize now why my head is – and has always been – in the clouds:
I am building immense, elaborate, yet delicate, idea-mansions up there. 
Over time I hope I'll be able to share a lot more of them with you!
​


(By clicking the 'Blue Sky' image you'll be able to see it incorporated into a found object that became part of the 'Containment' installation.)

If you would like to make a contribution to help bring some portion of those mansions to life (even $5 or $10 helps!) please click below and accept my heartfelt thanks.
Help bring my "mansions" to life via PayPal
Picture
Sometimes even my work is in the clouds, not just my head! Blue Sky photo-digital image (2016) by Kim Lee Kho, which formed part of the Blue Sky 3-D piece within my Containment installation at In Situ this Fall. Click on the image to see an installation view.
0 Comments

Growing into New Experiences (& Big, Old Spaces)

11/14/2016

1 Comment

 
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”
​– Oliver Wendell Holmes
The In Situ arts festival in late October was an extraordinary experience for me as an artist and a fun one in general.

With two large scale pieces in the main space and an entire room installation (allowing plenty of space for dancers to perform in), it was wonderful to stretch out (mentally and physically) into so much space.

The intensity required to conceive and execute so much in so little time is not sustainable for long (by me at least) but has some benefits. As I was just describing to a friend, it kept the threads of my thoughts white-hot, so every hour of work built 100% onto the previous hours, days and weeks of work – since most other distractions had been put aside... even sleep!

As well, working with the festival's fabulous lighting designer Joe Pagnan and working with light in the drawers and other components of my room installation 'Containment', has forever changed my thinking around light.

The incredible support and enthusiasm of Heather Snell, director/artistic director of the festival, and her wonderful husband Ken, was fertile ground in which to grow (thank you both!).
Picture
Insubstantiated III by Kim Lee Kho | acrylic paint pen on polyester voile, PVC tubing and LED lights; approx. 3ft dia. x 12ft h., 2015-16. Photo: Kal Honey

While I had nothing like enough time to get ready (in fact I am still trying to recover from the 24/7 preparations) but the joyful, creative and expansive experience that this was, coupled with the new work I produced for it, means I am glad and grateful for the opportunity.

And I still love that gorgeous, decrepit building!

Thanks to all who visited! For any who could not, I hope these photos will go some way toward compensating.
I make my work to be shared. With you. 
Which is why, although only a one-woman operation, I do my best to share via my blog, social media and email 'Update' newsletter.
I know each thought, event or artwork is part of a larger story and an opportunity to build meaning and to connect.

If you would like to support my projects (even $10 would help, believe me!) please click below and accept my heartfelt thanks.
Donate via Paypal

I will be updating my In Situ album on Flickr with more photographs soon, so check it out next week!
1 Comment

Which Comes First: the Artwork or the Space?

10/13/2016

0 Comments

 
For the past several weeks I have been working on a new, ambitious installation for In Situ, an event I wrote about in more detail here (click to open).

What I want to focus on in this post is the relationship between artworks and their space, in a deeper sense than "does this painting go with my couch?"

I leapt at the chance to be part of In Situ even though it would cost me money I don't have, even though there was not enough time to prepare, all because of the space!

​Soaring ceilings, tiny welder's booths, classic windows, exposed pipes, industrial fixtures, peeling paint... what's not to love?
Picture
Part of the main factory space at the Small Arms Building in Mississauga, Ontario, where the In Situ arts festival will be held Oct 27, 28 and 29, 2016. All photo by me, Kim-Lee Kho, except as indicated.
The Small Arms Building is a wonderful network of spaces in a gorgeous state of neglect, the perfect location to stage artworks (not just visual but also performance-based) that relate to this remarkable, untamed space.

As an artist working on projects in an imaginative-but-real world, I wear a number of hats. I put a couple on right away when first touring the space: the Practical Hat (the one that wants me to sleep 8 hours every night, not get up to my eyeballs in debt, see my friends and family more often and regularly, eat well and work out, you know the one) – it thinks about what work I already have that could work in this space; the Dreamer Hat looks at the vast potential of all the spaces in the building and imagines a fantastic array of mostly-impossible (for me in these circumstances at least) ways to transform them and create remarkable experiences.

I am grateful to both Hats: one for keeping me alive (more or less, depending!); the other for enticing me to stretch and attempt things that while less-than-sensible have been glorious to thinking about, to see realized, to watch people interact with and to talk with some of them about.
Picture
Visitors looking at 'Double Happiness, Three's a Crowd' giant scrolls (another gloriously immoderate project) which I showed at the Clarke Hall event in Port Credit earlier this year. They had previously only been shown in the Vancouver area. Photo-digital mixed media printed onto fabric and fashioned into scrolls, 16ft x 4ft each. Photo: Sandra Robson 2016
Picture
"My" room at the Small Arms Building for the In Situ festival. I will have other pieces elsewhere in the building as well.
The photo above shows the space that will be all mine (insert evil laugh here). The room is 20ft by 50ft. A dance performance and its audience will need a pathway through it to the next room, but allowing for that I can do what I want!

At right (I hope it's that way for mobile users as well) is a shot showing a fraction of the drawers I have collected or had set aside for me so I can build my main new sculpture. I won't really know until they are in the space how many I will need, which is part of the fun (and also part of what tells me I have fully transitioned to being an artist now, as my designer self would have wanted to control every detail in advance!). 

In addition to drawers and boxes, I will be working with a lot of photo-digital image transfers, plexiglass and light. This work's roots are my 'Boxed In' figure drawings from 2010 and it will connect up to all of the 'Subject to Limitation' thematic work since.

I will be showing a few existing pieces, one reconfigured specifically for the space it will be in (not pictured here). One of the others has only been shown in BC back in 2012: "Turbulence" a 21ft long photo-digital mixed media piece comprised of six angled panels that will be hung high and look down on the people below. It should suit the main space very well!

So in answer to the question posed in the title of this post: both. I've had the idea for the drawers portion of the main sculpture piece for a few years now but other aspects of the installation that it will be part of were inspired by the context. Also the actual configuration and some of the details of the sculpture are responses to the space and particularities of the event.

​
Picture
Drawers galore! Here is just a small sampling of all the drawers I'll be using for my main sculpture piece at 'In Situ'. Photos: Kim-Lee Kho
I make my work to be shared. With you.
Which is why, even as a one-woman operation, I do my best to share via my blog, social media and email newsletter.
Because I know everything I make is part of a larger story. Every thought I have as an artist is an opportunity to build meaning and to connect.

If you would like to support my projects – for as little as $10 or more – just click the link below and please accept my heartfelt thanks.

paypal.me/kimleekho
0 Comments

    Kim-Lee Kho

    As a visual artist I like nothing more than getting up to my elbows in paint or little plastic toys, or wading in at the deep end in pursuit of an idea. When I am not teaching others in a similar vein, you can find me researching, writing and noodling around in my studio, seeing where my latest lines of inquiry lead me.

    RSS Feed


    Subscribe to receive updates on my upcoming events, exhibitions, workshops, Gallery Walk&Talks, and more!

    * indicates required

    Archives

    April 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Artists
    Artlovers
    Art Opportunity
    "art Patrons"
    Beauty
    Beginner Mind
    "blank Slate"
    Book
    Cheap & Cheerful
    Colour
    Community
    Conversation
    Courses
    Craft
    Creativity
    Daily Practice
    Daring
    Demonstration
    Digital
    Drawing
    Early Work
    Event
    Exhibition
    Failure
    Favourite Tools
    Fear
    Fibre-based
    "getting Started"
    Habits
    Holidays
    Ideas
    Inner Critic
    Installation
    In The Arena
    Jurying
    #kindnessmatters
    Learning
    Lettering
    Living Too Small
    Materials
    Media
    New Work
    "new Year"
    Painting
    Pattern
    Perfectionism
    Photo Based
    Photo-based
    Photography
    Portraiture
    Printmaking
    Promotion
    Publicity
    Quote
    Reflecting
    Roosevelt
    Sales
    Sculpture
    Serendipity
    Solitude
    "sponsorship Opportunity"
    Studio
    Talk/presentation
    Travel
    Upcoming

    All images and content on this website © Kim-Lee Kho 2005–2018 except as indicated. All rights reserved. No reproduction without express, written permission.
* indicates required

      All images and content on this website © Kim Lee Kho 2005–2020 except as indicated. All rights reserved. No reproduction without express, written permission.
  • Home
  • Gallery
    • 2025 Facial Expressions >
      • Crumpled 11
    • Burnt Offerings (2023)
    • Burnt Offerings (2022) >
      • Sponsors: Thank you
    • My Father's Things (series)
    • Heartspace
    • A Full Heart
    • Subject to Limitation >
      • Boxed In
      • Expanding Media
      • Fences as Barriers
      • Containment
    • Skin
    • Face[t]s
    • [Un]Settled
    • Digital / Photo / Mixed
    • Painting
    • To See More
  • SHOP 📦
  • Courses & Events
    • Current + Upcoming
    • Virtual Studio Parties
    • Gallery Walk & Talks
    • Testimonials
  • Blog
    • News Archive
  • ABOUT
    • Biography
    • Statement
    • CV
    • Publications/Media
  • Contact