Kathleen Zimmerman
Kathleen Zimmerman’s love affair with form is evident in all her work. Her special way of seeing the underlying abstract shapes of her subject matter was appreciated throughout school causing one of her professors to tell her she drew like a sculptor. This appreciation earned her artistic merit scholarships and academic grants from the University of Hartford Art School in West Hartford, Connecticut, where she received her fine arts degree concentrating in sculpture and printmaking. Since graduation, she has worked both professionally and privately in the fields of art casting, carpentry, metal fabrication, printmaking and art teaching while continuing to earn awards, memberships on merit and gallery representation.
Kathleen Zimmerman's art deals with ideas concerning both day-to-day life as well as more profound ideas surrounding relationships, the environment and culture. She creates her work in series’, such as “Cosmic Cow, Dance, East West and Space”, to thoroughly explore issues that are of interest to her. She uses symbolism and surrealism to transform her subject matter into archetypal images, which gives it a mythical quality filled with layers of meaning. While she always uses quality materials, the ideas are the driving force behind these profound visual statements not the materials. She uses various media in her two-dimensional work from graphite drawings to intaglio, digital and most recently serigraphic prints. Her three- dimensional artwork consists of both cast bronze elements combined with fabricated elements.
The historically important artists she most admires are; Kathe Kollwitz, a German Expressionistic printmaker, Remedios Varo, a Mexican Surrealistic painter, Georgia O'Keeffe, an American Modern painter and Brancusi, a Romanian Minimalist sculptor. These very different artists all inspired her to create her own visual language, which is accessible to others while still remaining intimately personal.