Artist Statement

K.  Kim Thomas

My works are a visual discussion around climate change, nature, and our insatiable consumer culture. As an intersection between all three issues, found single-use plastics are often used as a key material in my artwork. In manipulating debris through a variety of media — primarily sculpture, installation, and printmaking — I present the viewer with an everyday object in an unexpected, new form.

I am particularly interested in the way these forms mimic human consumption and its relationship to pollution, which spreads over and suffocates the world around us, just as plastics become entangled in the environment.

My works are abstract embodiments of this process, usually on a larger scale, in an attempt to envelop the scope of issues we face in the​​ Anthropocene. Each piece brings with it the narrative associated with its materiality, the juxtaposition of nature and manmade, and challenges the viewer to contemplate their own relationship with these materials.