Kim
Manfredi
Bio
Kim Manfredi
Kim Manfredi is an American painter whose work moves fluidly between abstraction and representation. Her material-forward paintings are informed by art history, climate, and place. She earned her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 1988 and returned to complete her MFA in painting in 2009, studying under Grace Hartigan and Joyce Kozloff.
Early in her career, Manfredi was represented by C. Grimaldis Gallery and has held residencies at BoxoPROJECTS, RUC, the Vermont Studio Center, VCCA, and Maryland Art Place. Recent solo exhibitions include Bloom at Patricia Sweetow Gallery and Lady Lazarus at Royale Projects, both in Los Angeles. She was also featured in Tutto a Tempo at the Camus Museum in Breno, Italy.
In 2024, Manfredi was awarded the Torrance Art Museum Fellowship and attended the Cycladic Arts Residency in Paros, Greece. Her painting Sillmangreen was acquired by the Palm Springs Art Museum for its permanent collection.
She is currently preparing an exhibition of her Greek paintings and sculpture at the Torrance Art Museum in summer 2026 and is developing a solo exhibition and public commission for the Laguna Art Museum, opening in fall 2026.
Items
Number of items found:
1
"Semifore 2"
Oil, sand and enamie on canvas
72 x 52 x 1" - 2025
Artist's Statement
I make paintings that move between abstraction and representation, using color, material, and surface to explore how social contracts mediate our experience of ourselves, each other, and the natural world. I return repeatedly to the ideas of barrier and passageway as guiding metaphors. They are structures that both protect and restrict, separate and connect.
Material is central to this inquiry. Texture, aerosol, and layered oil paint create surfaces that register resistance and permeability, allowing the painting itself to embody these tensions.
Landscape, the body, and iconic forms such as the temple, pyramid, and flag appear as sites where private experience and shared meaning intersect. Hand-gathered sand, spray paint, oil, and crayon produce a range of marks that remain rooted in painting while pointing to the world.
Ultimately, my work aims to slow perception and create space for reflection. I see the handmade as a vital human practice.