Artist Bio
Kimberly Zahler is a painter and illustrator based in Pittsburgh, PA.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest and spending her early adulthood in Colorado, she feels deeply connected to nature. With a career spanning classical music, digital design, business strategy, and art, she delights in finding opportunities and new ideas between disciplines. She is interested in how formal, historical practices and structures are relevant and adaptable in our current world.
Kimberly earned a Master of Arts (MA) in Emergent Digital Practices at the University of Denver, where she studied how communities use technology and art to connect. Her thesis explored opportunities to redefine classical music literacy and engagement by adopting methods from museum anthropology and video game design. She simultaneously enrolled in a Botanical Illustration Certification program at the Denver Botanic Gardens, which sparked her love for watercolor and botanical art.
Later art classes introduced her to acrylic and Impressionist painting techniques, which she promptly fell in love with. Kimberly also earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Music Performance from George Fox University and completed post-graduate studies in Flute Performance and Pedagogy at The Flute Studio with Trevor Wye, and The Royal Academy of Music in London.
When she is not painting or designing, she can be found exploring her neighborhood, reading a dozen different books, or cuddling with her beloved cat.
Artist Statement
I paint nature using watercolor and acrylic.
Both mediums allow me to be as controlled or relaxed as I want to be. In each piece, I use a limited palette because reducing the number of options paradoxically makes decision-making easier. It also means that each color is related to every other color in the piece, much how I see humans relating to nature and each other in community.
This idea works with my preferred subjects—botanicals and landscapes. Painting nature scenes allow me to explore and express my internal emotional landscape. From there, I can nurture and develop my intuition and imagination.
I am intrigued by the Romantic and early Modernist eras in music, literature, and visual arts. They formed a reaction against Industrialization, and explored the rich, emotive possibilities in colors, sounds, and words. These ideas inform the impulse of my work as a celebration of humanity and nature, and as a resistance against technology reaching into every area of life. Using historical techniques makes me feel connected to the long history of musicians and artists.
I love the paradoxes between individualism and connectedness. I find it delightful to zoom into the tiny details of a petal or leaf, and then zoom out to capture the expansiveness of a landscape. Both remind me that we are connected to each other and our gorgeous planet.
Painting allows me to slow down and find serenity. I can tune out everything else and focus only on what I’m creating. As a hidden treasure, I hide an uplifting word within each painting. I meditate on that word as I work, and hope that it will also resonate with the viewer.
Education
Master of Arts (MA) in Emergent Digital Practices
University of Denver
Denver, Colorado
Postgraduate Flute Performance & Pedagogy
The Flute Studio with Trevor Wye
Kent, England
Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Music Performance
George Fox University
Newberg, Oregon