Contrary to popular belief, home isn’t always a place. It’s a state of being, where we can comfortably unravel ourselves and bare our flaws, insecurities, and our histories.
For Kim Oliveros, “your home is you.”
This ethos rings true in her latest exhibition called Nested Memories at the Finale Art File. An examination of her personal life and artistic practice, a series of paintings indexing personal mementos and portraying women in kimonos immortalize sentiments of attachment and belonging.
In “Fragments”, Olivares writes: “I painted these commonplace objects, which have sentimental meaning to me; some were given to me as a gift or handed down to me, and some I had collected over the years; I also included one of my favorite foods. There’s not so much of a story in each composition [as they] symbolize fragments of the past and of time.”
In “The Way to Keep Things Alive” and “Saving Things that Eventually Die”, Olivares notes: “I continue to paint portraits of women in kimonos signifying the influences I had growing up in a garments district but this time, the women are holding and carrying objects, as if moving them from one place to another. It also signifies my attachment to my belongings that have sentimental value and transitioning into something unknown.”
Kim Oliveros’s Nested Memories is showing at the Tall Gallery of Finale Art File till Nov. 14, 2017.
