About Kimberly Reed-Deemer Studio New Mexico artist in watercolor, gouache, charcoal, pastel, pen and ink, Southwestern art, paintings, drawings, figurative, Santa Fe art, flamenco, folklorico

About Kimberly S. Reed-Deemer

New Mexico Artist in Oil, Watercolor, Gouache, Charcoal, Pastel, Pen and Ink

Before New Mexico

I lived most of my life in Woodstock, Illinois, a small town northwest of Chicago, and I consider myself a true 'Midwesterner.' I attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago, transferring to the art program at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. After leaving NIU, I worked in fine art, focusing on charcoal, pen and ink drawings, and watercolors involving subjects that were very middle-American; portraits of family and friends, watercolor compositions based on Victorian and 'farmhouse' architecture characteristic of the Midwest, as well as some rural landscapes.

In 1993 I traveled to the Yucatan in Mexico which generated a number of ink and watercolor compositions of Maya ruins, and decided to pursue a degree program in anthropology at NIU. While I earned my degrees I worked in a biology lab, leading to a sideline in scientific illustration. While I was working on my master's degree in physical anthropology, I was called upon to produce illustrations of fossil human and nonhuman primates for the paleontologists at NIU, including work published in Newsweek and Popular Science. My own research in anthropology involved functional anatomy and locomotion in early fossil humans, and a number of illustrations pertained to my work on that issue. From 1990 until our move to New Mexico in 2004, most of my artistic output consisted of scientific illustration.

The Present

In the pieces completed in New Mexico from 2008 to 2009, I concentrated on charcoal and pastel drawings, as well as pen and ink renderings with gouache and watercolor. Part of that work focused on the religious iconography and structures prevalent in New Mexico. These drawings are typically done in crow quill pen and India ink, followed by washes of gouache and watercolor. At that time I also began a series of charcoal and pastel drawings, and gouache and watercolor paintings of Baile Folklorico, Flamenco, and Zuni Pueblo dancers.

In August of 2010, I began working in oil. My paintings in this thoroughly engaging medium involve portraits, New Mexico landscapes and something entirely new for me, still life compositions combining interesting objects and associations.

I am presently working on a series of oils and watercolors involving the theme of scientific observation for a solo exhibit at Burris Hall of New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The show is scheduled for September of 2013.

In spite of these differing subjects and media, all of my New Mexico work is united by an emphasis on drawing, selective but expressive use of color, and an appreciation of the cultural and physical landscape in which I am fortunate to live.