Kimberley Beach (born in 1990, Middlesbrough, UK) completed an MA in Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art (2018), after previously completing studies at the University of Westminster (2015) and the Northern School of Art (2012). She is a recipient of the Dolbey Travel award, the Felix Slade Scholarship, shortlisted for the Sarabande Foundation scholarship, and New Contemporaries 2019. Kimberley was selected as one of six London graduates to exhibit at the Anise Gallery Summer Show in 2018 and chosen to participate in Middlesbrough Art Weekender in 2019, as well as exhibiting internationally for solo and group presentations. Kimberley was most recently half of a two-person durational performance with the artist G, that took place in Amsterdam and Barcelona in 2022.
Kimberley is an interdisciplinary artist working with sound, print, photography, and cinematic representations, with work often taking shape in the form of multi-media installations. Kimberley’s practice is an exploration in the artificial dichotomy of hard and soft power that exists within a capitalist society. Kimberley looks at how situational subjectivities, the political landscape of Britain and the contemporary discourse on personal and political persons within a wider fragmented society are formed through cultural, sociological, neo-liberal and biopolitical frameworks; with the wider purpose of questioning how our bodies and minds are moulded, restricted and managed through structural approaches to labour, class, time, space and citizenship.
Since 2016 she has been focusing on social class, both within society and the more insular arts environment. She has used her own personal experiences with class in addition to outside factors such as Brexit, The Great British Class Survey as well as the Panic! Report on the lack of working-class people within the creative industries as topics to explore within her work, with the intention of questioning wider social constructs of power and feelings of belonging.
Kimberley currently holds the position of Visual Researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science, focusing on age, class, race, and gender within popular culture.
Education
2016 - 2018 MA Fine Art Media, The Slade School of Fine Art
2012 - 2015 BA (Hons) Mixed Media Fine Art, University of Westminster
Awards
2019 Bloomberg New Contemporaries (Shortlisted)
2018 The Signature Art Prize (Shortlisted)
2018 The Dolbey Travel Award, London.
2016 The Felix Slade Scholarship, London.
2016 The Sarabande Foundation Scholarship, London. (Shortlisted).
Selected Exhibitions
Solo
2016 'Recollections', Si:Said Gallery, Lithuania.
Two-Person
2022 'Be Sharp Say Nowt' In collaboration with G's durational performance
'Groaming Gallery', Amsterdam, Netherlands and Barcelona, Spain.
Group
2022 Colour/Pigment/Poetry an online exhibition as part of Colour & Poetry: A Symposium IV.
Slade School of Fine Art, UCL and The Foyer Gallery at White City Place, London.
2021 'Pure Class', Working Class Creatives Database & The Royal College of Fine Art,
Holloway Road, London.
2021 This is Not a Show this is a Statement of Intent, Pineapple Black Gallery, Middlesbrough.
2021 Colour and Poetry Symposium and online exhibition: Colour/Collage/Poetry,
Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London.
2019 Middlesbrough Art Weekender in collaboration with Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art.
2019 'The Nomenclature of Colours' Exhibition, as part of Colour & Poetry: A Symposium,
Slade Research Centre, London.
2019 Stone Islanders, Art Hub Gallery, London.
2018 A Place that Fosters us, Angel, London.
2018 Summer Graduate Show, Anise Gallery, London.
2018 MA/MFA Degree Show, The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London
2018 Body as Archive, Slade Research Centre, Bloomsbury, London.
2018 Videosport (Returns), Good Sport, Ontario, Canada.
2015 The Listening Booth, Online streaming of Audio work.
2015 The Independent Artist Fair, The Rag Factory, Brick Lane, London.
2015 Names, Ambika P3, Marylebone, London.
2014 22:1, Safehouse 1&2, Peckham, London.
2014 Mish Mashed, Gallery 320, Bethnal Green, London.
Press
2021 'Artist Spotlight' Sick Love Zine.
2021 'Cement' Savage Journal, UCL Press.
2020 'Northern Exposure' Visual Artists Ireland News Sheet, Chris Clarke.
2018 Top 7 London exhibitions, Anise Gallery, FAD Magazine.
2018 Summer Graduate Show, Anise Gallery, LondonLive TV.
2016 Augustinas Zemrieta, 'Recollections' review, Durys Magazine, 30 - 31.
2016 Fragmentary Interview with Daniel Regan
2015 Articulaction Meets Kimberley Beach, Articulaction Art Review, 46 - 69.
Writing
2020 Making Respectable Women: Changing Moralities, Changing Times.
Author: Mary Evans, Author of Contributions: Kimberley Beach, Palgrave Macmillan.
Funded by the Paul Mellon Centre and the London School of Economics and Political Science.