THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408250197
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 40 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Nancy McWilliams
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
New York artist Jill Kimball presents a subject dear to the hearts of Outer Bankers in the ``Where the Land Meets the Sea'' art exhibit at the Ghost Fleet Gallery in Nags Head.
Relying on the coast for inspiration, Kimball explores the transformative power of the sea upon the land, ``how taken together they form a unique light and mood.'' Kimball has captured the special qualities of life by the ocean. She fell in love with the Outer Banks when visiting a friend here.
The small show, on display through Sept. 3 in the gallery's ``west wing,'' is well worth a look. Kimball's style is of the Hudson River school of painting, rich and dreamlike. She uses light to illustrate transcendental ideals. This series of oil paintings is intriguing and romantically beautiful.
Oils are Kimball's medium of choice. ``It's what I learned,'' she explained. ``It's enough to spend a lifetime mastering one medium. For me, doing one thing well is what I'm after.''
Through this artist's eyes, the moisture in the coastal air actually suspends light particles, ``softening the landscape and creating a visceral quality in its sounds and sights and smells.''
After living as a child in Kansas City and New Jersey, Kimball said the family's move to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., when she was 8 was a shocking experience. Florida's natural beauty proved to be a lasting influence on her. ``We settled in this place with incredible skies and verdant landscapes,'' she said. ``It was very moving to me.''
After watching her mother paint landscapes throughout her childhood, Kimball went on to earn a bachelor of fine arts at the University of New Mexico and a master's of fine art from Hunter College in New York. In the beginning of her art career, Kimball painted contemporary installation pieces. ``They weren't particularly appealing but they were very tough works,'' she said.
About four years ago she turned to landscapes, partly because of economic advantages. ``I wanted to stay an artist and I couldn't make money with contemporary art,'' she said.
For her, the change has been ``a perfect fit. I felt absolutely comfortable.''
The irony of someone living in Brooklyn and painting gorgeous land and seascapes from her imagination is acceptable to Kimball. ``My paintings are about longing,'' she said. ``I'm away from what I love and it brings out a quality of feeling toward a place. That poignancy is what I try to capture in the work.''
Quoting from Annie Dillard's book, ``The Writing Life,'' Kimball said, ``Write about winter in the summer . . . Describe Norway as Ibsen did from a desk in Italy . . . Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn in Hartford, Conn. . . . Recently scholars learned that Walt Whitman rarely left his room.'' In that same vein, Kimball said her paintings are homages to nature from the middle of New York City.
At 41, Kimball hopes to continue on as she is, and would like her paintings to become more historically oriented. ``They're like the 19th century Hudson River paintings,'' Kimball said. ``I like the richness and depth of their work. I bring together the influence of these paintings which use light as spiritual illumination with a building of form through light as in Cezanne's work to arrive at my personal vision of landscape.''
Also, she is influenced by the humility and intimate grandeur of Dutch 17th century paintings, along with her own mother's landscapes.
For Kimball, landscapes are ``a touchstone, an emotional metaphor of connectedness to the world. There is a spiritual component too, that of the scale of the self to the larger world. In the landscape all things figuratively and literally fall into perspective.''
See the work of Jill Kimball at Glenn Eure's Ghost Fleet Gallery, 210 E. Driftwood, between the highways in Nags Head, through Sept. 3. by CNB