Kim 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.

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.