Meet Melbourne-based artist Kim Kermode
Exploring color and culture in Collingwood
A few weeks ago I was in Melbourne and its surrounds for both business and pleasure, when I randomly ran into friends who encouraged me to check out an art exhibition of their friend, Kim Kermode, originally from Montreal.
Unprepared and up for anything, I found myself hopping out of an Uber later that night at Off The Kerb Gallery. At first I couldn’t find my friends because the place was absolutely packed. Every room on every floor was an exhibition dedicated to a different artist. Kim’s was in the perfect place, next to the beer garden.
I found my friends, introduced myself to Kim and also met her charming mother, Chantal Kermode who told me she was from the Caribbean (Martinique) and then migrated to Canada. Now Chantal lives in Australia, what a life journey!
Kim’s eight portraits are eye-catching, contemporary acrylic paintings of realistic, beautiful faces. She painted women based off photos. The pieces also show bright colorful objects and shapes that invite the viewer to ask questions and delve deeper.
After the opening we all went to a greasy-spoon-5th-floor tram diner place as one does in Melbourne, and Kim agreed to let me do the fastest interview ever as we had just minutes before the next diners took the table.
Please enjoy our brief chat below, and check out her art on Instagram, as sadly the exhibition has now finished. (Sorry I didn’t write this earlier, Kim!) You can have a closer look at her works by clicking here.
Kim’s a graphic designer and she’s also been painting since 2016, in part to get away from screens and do more with her hands. This is her second exhibition. Her last show explored her own heritage and this one examined the cultural identities of those around her.
”This body of work is an exploration of a cultural mosaic, where multiculturally diverse groups maintain their unique identities while contributing to the broader social fabric. I explored each subject’s values and how they have preserved the distinctiveness of their culture while living a Westernized lifestyle in Australia.
Throughout the creation of these works, the paintings have served as a visual journey of each subject’s story where they felt both a part of as well as isolated from where they currently live as well as when they return to their birthplace,” Kim wrote on Instagram.
Kim’s collection of portraits are called Creation of a Mosaic.
”That's a term when there's a lot of multiculturalism in a place, and people bring their heritage into the city, into society and embrace it,” Kim told me.
She finds the phrase interesting, particularly as she’s tried to learn about her mother’s Caribbean heritage. It’s hard as her mother moved to Canada at the age of ten.
”I find that my story, learning about my heritage, it resonates with a lot of people, in a different way but in a similar way, where they also feel displaced. They don't feel like they're part of the here and now,” she says.
Painting the portraits allowed Kim to ask the women about their cultural backgrounds. She wasn’t looking exclusively for people of color, but she was looking for women who stood out. She was interested to learn their stories of living in Australia, a young nation compared to most other Western societies. We discussed how many people living in Australia are from other parts of the world, but sometimes Australia doesn’t seem that multicultural.
”What was interesting with a lot of my pieces were, even though the subjects are all from different parts of the world, or their heritage is, they all resonate with fashion, pop culture, very Western ways of living. But then they also want to bring a part of their heritage into their own lives and their own way of language,” she says.
Kim’s own mixed background and feelings of being lost and disconnected started this specific creative journey. She enjoyed learning how others from multicultural backgrounds came to find their way and understand themselves. It can be isolating not knowing about where you’re from, and even when you do, it’s hard to feel accepted when you call more than one country home.
Her exhibition and our subsequent conversation gave me plenty of thoughts, including pondering my own cultural background, being born in the US and now an Aussie citizen.
On an unrelated note, I knew two of the women Kim painted, and it’s also just really neat to see an artistic representation of a friend.
Here’s Jo! :)
Thanks to Kim, her family and friends for graciously sharing their night and stories me. It was unexpected, thought-provoking and super special.