Overview

Kim Bartelt trained in painting at the Parson's School of Design but abandoned the medium in favour of using found paper in her compositions. Bartelt painstakingly pastes irregular segments of coloured and transparent sheets of paper onto canvas. Her paintings are infused with a delicate energy, embodying the meditative quality of her collage process. The sensitivity of the semi-transparent tissue paper serves to emphasise this process of layering and accumulation. 

'With this medium you can't hide anything or erase any errors, but I actually like the little accidents, folds, wrinkles and even small stains that evoke the fragility of life in general and of us humans in particular' 

Kim Bartelt

Collected over the years, these re-used fragments allude to their past applications in their wrinkles and folds. In her more recent works, the papers used have been off-cuts from previous projects, creating a shared visual vocabulary across all of her works; here the division between the controlled and predetermined, and the unpredictable is embedded into her practice. 

 

Currently based in Berlin, Bartelt completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Parsons School of Design in New York, and has since regularly exhibited in group and solo shows in Chicago, Berlin, Paris, and London. She has been represented by Cadogan Contemporary since 2020 and is currently planning her first solo exhibition with the gallery in January 2022.

 

Works
Exhibitions
Studio Shots
Publications
Biography

Kim Bartelt graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She previously completed studies in Art History and Art Management at l’Icart in Paris.

Since graduation, Bartelt has regularly exhibited in group shows in Chicago, USA, Berlin, London and Paris. She was invited to present a solo exhibition at the Villa d’Este, Como, Italy in 2000 and has since had 2 solo shows and art fair participation at Berliner Liste with Galerie LackeFarben, Berlin.

In 2019 she has been selected as an artist in residence at Numeroventi in Florence, Italy (April) & Joya, Almeria, Spain (September).

Her work is featured in the quarterly hardcover print publication Volume 8, produced by Friend of the Artist (FOA) (February 2019), on Sight Unseen (October 2019 & December 2019), Wall Street International Mag (Jan 2020), Milk Decoration magazine print publication #31 (Feb 2020) and Anniversary Magazine (March 2020).

Bartelt’s work is held in private collections in Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, UK, Israel, Brazil, India  and USA. She is currently living and working in Berlin, Germany.

 

 

Education
1998 Parsons The New School of Design, New York - BFA in Fine Arts
1994-95 Parsons The New School of Design, New York - Foundation Year
1992-94 Icart, Institute des Carrières Artistiques, Paris - Studies of Art History and Art Management 

 

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2017 'Paper' Hettler.Tullmann, Berlin 
2016/15 'A fleur de peau', Galerie Lacke&Farben, Berlin
2013 'Right Here', Galerie Lacke Farben, Berlin
2000 'Wintertales', Solo Exhibition, Villa d’Este, Como, Italy

 

Selected Group Exhibitions 
2019

GIFC at Hotel Paris, Berlin. Organised by ZeroZero Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
 

Blankartobjects, San Francisco
2018 Amélie, Maison d'Art, Paris 
2014/13 Berliner Liste, Discovery Art Fair, Galerie Lacke&Farben, Berlin
1998 Parsons School of Design Gallery, New York
1996 Parsons School of Design Gallery, Paris 

 

Artist Residencies
September 2019 Joya, Almería, Spain
March/April 2019 Numeroventi, Florence, Italy 

 

Publications

Sight Unseen, December 2019, Jill Singer, https://www.sightunseen.com/2019/12/kim-bartelt-x-yellownose-baldon-berlin/

Sight Unseen, October 2019, Malin Ebbing, https://www.sightunseen.com/2019/10/berlin-home-tour-german-artist-kim-bartelt-paper-paintings/

FoA, February 2019 https://www.friendoftheartist.com/store/volume8

Tagesspiegel, June 2013, Friederike Höll, https://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/ohne-ende/8389776.html

Press