Kimbal Bumstead

Painting is an essential part of my being; a painting to me is not only an image but a physical material object, which embodies traces of its process of production.

My abstract work is material-based and process-led: it explores the notion of layering from both a conceptual and material standpoint. My painting process is a cathartic dialogue with the materials, which involves building and unearthing translucent coatings of oil paint and varnish onto plywood, paper and canvas. The resulting paintings are a trace of that dialogue. Through painting, I am the cartographer of a journey through an internal, perhaps imagined, landscape; where each painting acts as a section of an extended landscape that could perhaps exist beyond the frame. The work is playful and colourful, explosive and pensive; poetically confrontational shapes flow between each other, like the meeting of two or more worlds, folding and colliding.

My painting practice is influenced by my intimate one-to-one performance art work, which involves sensory drawing as a performative act, as well as by my fascination with cartography.
I am interested in how mark-making can be used as a way to map layers of subjectivities in relation to space, place and the body. My ...

2009-2010 Queen Mary University of London, MA Performance and Theatre

2004-2008 University of Leeds, Fine Art BA (International) First Class Honours.

2006-2007 Akademia Sztuka Pieknych w Krakowie (Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow) (Erasmus exchange)

2022

PIAM International Art Festival, Group exhibition organised by Piccadilly International Art Museum, Daejeon Artist House (Daejeon)/ KINTEX (Goyang), (KR)

The Other Art Fair, Truman Brewery, London (UK)

The Mercer Gallery, “The Mercer Open”, Group exhibition, Harrogate (UK)

According to McGee, According to McGee, ”The Return of the Painter, Duo Exhibition, York, (UK)

Dean Clough Gallery, “ArtLab” - Collaboration with Andy Abbott , Group exhibition, Halifax, (UK)

Fronteer Gallery, “Colour”, Group exhibition, Sheffield, (UK)

The Mall Galleries, "Art For Youth", London (UK)
2021

Aeon Gallery, Solo Exhibition, London (UK)

Basement Arts Project, ”Sonic Landscapes ”, Solo Exhibition, Leeds (UK)/ Online

The Absent Gallery, ”Spring Exhibition”, Group Exhibition, Online


2020

Studio 73 Gallery, Solo Exhibition, London (UK)

Number 23 Gallery, “Contemporary Fine Art”, Group Exhibition, London (UK)

BatArtLab “The Home Cases”, Online Group Exhibition


2019

Mall Galleries, “Art for Youth” Charity fundraising exhibition, London

Ninth Life, “Catford Arts Trail” Group Exhibition, London

Arena Design Centre, “What do you see, How do you feel?” Group Exhibition, London

Control Tower ...