Get Swept Away By This Denver Artist's Ephemeral Works

As the world turns, so too do the forces of nature. Denver artist Kimberlee Sullivan traces them all through her abstract, mixed-media paintings, her brushstrokes bristling with power. “Instead of making that beautiful, perfect landscape, I love finding the patterns of nature,” says the artist. After earning a Master of Arts at The University of Colorado, Boulder and a fellowship from the Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute, moving to the Mile High City only amplified her fascination with the landscape. But while her earliest pieces felt more representational, her work has evolved as “the bits of plants and clouds fused,” she explains. “It became more about the feeling, capturing that ephemeral quality instead of something realistic.” She explores these nascent forms through multiple studies that fill her studio’s walls, her compositions taking shape through the layering of oil paint, oil sticks and acrylic on canvas or wooden boards. Sullivan also often incorporates resin and adds tactile complexity by scraping sections away with rubber or the back of her brushes. Through this preoccupation with natural patterns, there is the inevitable undercurrent of climate change and its disruption of earthly motions—associations the artist does not run away from. “I don't want to be so political in my work, but I think I touch upon it with honesty because I feel strongly about the beauty of nature,” she reflects. “That means, for me, the fragility of everything in life.”