Chase 2007
Installation view at the Islip Art Museum
Panorama, beagles and hobby horses with beaded stable
(see previous page for detail view and more information)

Delight 2007
24 x 30 inches
Acrylic paint on pre-printed puzzle

Excerpt from Open Season:Q&A
in NY Arts Mag.(9/10.07)

(Whitney May)Are you able to translate this set of works recently on display into a concrete narrative at all?
(KH)Narratives, some of which are more simplistic than others, inspire the works in Open Season. Each piece informs the other and connections can be drawn between elements of the installation but there is no concrete narrative that binds the entire show together into a singular, concise anecdote. I’m more interested in creating an environment where the viewer is given a wide variety of cues in the ultimate hope that they’ll conjure their own image of the missing heroine. The subject of all the excitement, the character never expected to explode onto the scene. She is what people should take away from the show.

Kimberly Hart: Open Season
By Anthony Venditto on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

Conventional thinking preaches that sugar and spice and everything nice are all that little girls are made of. Kimberly Hart in her exhibition, Open Season, reminds us that conventional thinking has no place in modern art.

She laughs in the face of convention and shows us that little girls can be balls (ovaries?) tough, little bad asses that buck pre conceived notions and recreate social norms on their own terms. In this exhibit she’s unleashed an alter ego to counter Degas’ pink frilly tutu wearing prissy lil’ Daddy’s girl.

Hart has created a persona reminiscent of a modern day Scout,(Yes kids, that is a “To Kill a Mocking Bird” reference… you’re welcome.) a sequins clad warrior princess who could very well be the love child of Ted Nugent and a pre- felonious Martha Stewart.

These are the works of an adolescent’s guilt free imagination. Only a child could view nature and the hunt with such giddy macramed glee. Only a child could create a piece of art with bunnies strung up by their feet above a puddle of blood made out of red felt, and have it not be about violence.

There’s no adult voice at work here. There’s no fear or mean spiritedness. There’s simply the vision of a lil’ tomboy rambunctious and wild with a runaway imagination. This installation is about the joy of childhood, the joy of LIFE, and that’s something we can all dig.