Kim Victoria Abeles

Kim Victoria Abeles (born August 28, 1952) is an American interdisciplinary artist and professor emeritus.

She was born in Richmond Heights, Missouri, and currently lives in Los Angeles.

She is described as an activist artist because of her work's social and political nature.

In her work, she’s able to express these issues and shine a light on them to larger audiences.

She’s able to show the significance of the issues by creating a piece that involves an object and adds the struggle attached to it, which represents what is happening in current events.

She is also known for her feminist works.

Abeles has exhibited her works in 22 countries and has received a number of significant awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship.

In addition, she moved to smoggy Los Angeles in 1978.

Then in 1980, sweatshops started to pop up around her Los Angeles studio.

By seeing all this, she wanted to take an approach to her art that was more about "real life."

She has stated she is a "concept seeker and "object maker" this can be seen through her like Smog Collectors.

Kim Victoria Abeles received her BFA in painting from Ohio University and earned a MFA in studio art from the University of California, Irvine in 1980.

In connection with her thesis, about Shingon Buddhism, she created constructions incorporating kimono.

Critics connect Abeles' early works to those of Edward Kienholz and Wallace Berman, founders of the California assemblage tradition.

Kienholz's The State Hospital was an early inspiration to Abeles.

Abeles has worked in a variety of different mediums including repurposed materials, drawing, multimedia, sculpture and installations.

She often experiments with materials.

Intensive research, in which she immerses herself in her subject, is a significant part of her working process.

Kim Abeles commented on her art as, "results from the urban experience, chronicling historical and contemporary issues housed in sculpture and installation."

Her work begins with a singular person or idea and through her own independent research and exploration will delve into her chosen topic until she feels comfortable beginning her artwork.

She describes her artwork as the poetic spirit in a visual language.

Many of her projects address contemporary social and environmental issues.

She has explored topics including HIV/AIDS, pollution, gender roles, domestic violence, feminism, civil rights, and labor.

Kim Abeles explores such topical issues through humor and metaphors.

Most of her work has revolved around three central themes: civil rights, feminism, and the environment.

With her range of media and distinctive styles, Kim Abeles seamlessly unites her call for activism with her work aesthetics through new innovative techniques.

Abeles has worked with several educational organizations and schools to collaborate on installations and exhibitions.

She has worked with the multiple art centers like: The Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, Community Arts Resource in Santa Monica, Orange Country Museum of Art Teen Council, the California Science Center, and the CU Museum of Natural History in Boulder.

Her more defining collaborators include the Bureau of Automotive Repair, the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project, and the Lakota Indians of South Dakota.

She has also collaborated in projects with agencies to ensure raising awareness for different topics such as pollution control agencies, museums, health clinics, etc.

In 1987, her work Smog Collector caught national and international attention, mentioned in Newsweek, National Public Radio, CBS Evening News, and The Wall Street Journal.

Abeles accreits this piece as a tribute to what she first noticed upon moving into her new art studio in the city of Los Angeles- the smog.

Abeles created an innovative technique, using stencils and adhesives to collect smog particulate and produce symbols and images.

Abeles was motivated to create the project through her own curiosity and the effects of a year-long protest against a factory near her home that she said was "spewing formaldehyde".

Aside from her work as an artist, she was a professor in public art, sculpture, and drawing at California State University, Northridge from 1998 to 2009, after which she became professor emerita in 2010.

Kim Victoria Abeles was born in Richmond Heights, Missouri.

As a child, she spent some time living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an experience which she says influenced her work ''The Smog Collector.

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Kim Abele's main influences for her sculptures and installations stem from the urban world and historical and contemporary issues.

She focuses on this because she had her childhood in the known "steel town" of Pittsburgh.