Wesley Kimler (born 1953) is an American artist based in Chicago, Illinois, known for his colossal paintings, up to 15 feet high and 27 feet wide. According to critic Kevin Nance, these are "expressive, gestural, hybrid paintings that combine abstract and figurative elements in a way that's theatrical and beautiful, sometimes grotesque and surreal, and always powerfully evocative."Kevin Nance, "The Outsider With Loads of Talent, Rivaled Only by His Ego", ''Chicago Sun-Times'', 29 January 2006. Accessed on 17 September 2007
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History

Wesley Kimler was born in Billings, Montana. His family moved to California in 1959, where Kimler lived until he left home at the age of 14. Thereafter, he lived in San Francisco, Taos, New Mexico (where he studied music), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and Afghanistan. In that country, the then 20-year-old Kimler lived in Herat, Kandahar and Kabul, working as an agent for a dealer in traditional carpets. Kimler first began to paint at the age of 21, studying one year at the Laguna Gloria School of Art in Austin, Texas and 2 years at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The artist first showed in the mid 1980s at Frumkin-Struve (later simply Struve) Gallery in Chicago.

Artistic views

He has given outspoken interviews in which he champions painting, attacks what he views as the

Neo-Conceptual Neo-conceptual art describes art practices in the 1980s and particularly 1990s to date that derive from the conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. These subsequent initiatives have included the Moscow Conceptualists, United States neo-c ...

academy and the artworld hierarchy, advocating independence and self-reliance on the part of creators. He is also known in the contemporary Chicago artworld for his work rallying for a new art scene. Nicknamed "the Shark" due to his fierceness in discussions, he organized a website and

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''Sharkforum'' with fellow artist David Roth, which includes

Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to: Africa * Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi Asia East Asia * Museum of Contemporary Art Shangha ...

curator Lynne Warren, photographer and film critic Ray Pride and artist and theorist

Mark Staff Brandl Mark Staff Brandl (born 1955) is an Americans, American-born artist, art historian and philosopher of art now living primarily in Switzerland. History Born in Peoria, Illinois and raised in Pekin, Illinois, Brandl is the son of Earl and Ruth ...

. The artists active on his site also exhibit together under the name the Sharkpack.

Exhibitions

In addition to the Struve Gallery exhibitions in 1985, 86, 87 and 90, other notable shows by Kimler include those at Barbara Kornblatt Gallery in Washington, DC in 1986,

LA Louver Gallery L.A. Louver is an art gallery focusing on American and European contemporary art. The gallery is located in Venice, Los Angeles, California, United States. Directors The gallery directors are Peter Goulds, Kimberly Davis, and Elizabeth East. L ...

in Los Angeles in 1987 and 1990, Paula Anglim in San Francisco in 1990, "The Real Deal" with artists Ed Paschke and Tony Fitzpatrick in 1994, a Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago solo exhibition in 1995, as well as inclusion in "Art in Chicago, 1945-1995" exhibition at the latter institution in 1996. Kimler's art has been acquired by many institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Berkeley Art Museum in Berkeley, California, the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and in Chicago's Block Museum,

Smart Museum The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The permanent collection has over 15,000 objects. Admission is free and open to the general public. The Smart Muse ...

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and

, as well as in numerous private collections. Lisa Wainwright, a professor of art history and dean of graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has said of Kimler's art: "It's heroic, moral painting. He lives and breathes his art in the way the great painters did."

Notes and references

External links

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SharkforumInterview with Kimler on Bad at Sports podcast
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kimler, Wesley 1953 births 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists Living people People from Billings, Montana Artists from Chicago Artists from Montana 20th-century American male artists