User:Tewgal425/sandbox/Kimo Minton

Kimo Minton is a self-taught American sculptor and painter whose specialty is woodcarving. With influences ranging from Oceanic and African tribal art, to cubism, modernism, organic abstraction and Japanese printmaking, Minton has created a unique style that is reminiscent of many cultures but derived from none in particular.

Early Life
Born in 1950 in Lawrence, Kansas to a Hawaiian mother and a Caucasian father, Minton has said that he often felt like a half-breed and that creating art was a way to unify the inherent conflict between the two cultures from which he sprang.

Minton’s father was a nuclear engineer and the family lived Albuquerque, New Mexico when Minton was a boy, birthing his love of the desert. Minton was introduced to carving by observing his great grandfather whittle.

Education & Career
After graduating from high school he lived in Hawaii for a year. At the age of twenty he joined Lyndon Johnson’s Job Corps and studied carpentry because it gave him the opportunity to work with wood. After completing the program he began a serious self-study of art history and fell in love with Michelangelo, Rodin and Henry Moore. In 1976 Minton moved to Atlanta and purchased a house in historic Candler Park while the area’s prices were still cheap. While making his living during the day as a carpenter he pursued sculpture in the early morning and on weekends in a basement studio in Little Five Points. In 1983 he spent four months in Pietrasanta, Italy where he studied marble carving with Silverio Paoli. Other than a drawing class this was his only formal art training.

In the mid-1980s Minton showed in several Mattress Factory Shows in Atlanta. In 1989 he began a long-term relationship with TEW Galleries in Atlanta. His exhibitions have been reviewed in Art in America, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Art Papers, Creative Loafing, The Seattle Times, The Charlotte Observer and The Times-Picayune.

Minton moved back to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1991 where the mix of the Anglo, Spanish, Mexican and Indian cultures made him feel more at home.

In 2012 The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia acquired one of his woodcut panel paintings and in 2014, the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, in Atlanta, Georgia presented a solo exhibition entitled “Kimo Minton, Jazz Abstractions.”

Sculpture
Minton’s sculptures are usually derived from a single log or chunk of wood often from the abundance of cottonwood trees that grow and fall in the New Mexico. He begins by roughing out the figure with a chainsaw. Using a mallet, chisels, gouges and parting tools he contours and isolates the figure deliberately leaving textured tool marks to contrast with smooth planes. The chisel cuts, rasp marks and incised lines share an equal importance with the brush strokes and create lively abstract compositions in his woodcuts.

Minton has said that working with stone or marble is more like modeling clay in slow motion. “Wood,” he says, “fights you all the time, and every piece you end up with is a compromise between you and that particular piece of wood.”

Minton often uses the word angel or guardian in the title of his sculptures to express their spiritual significance. They are also keepers of history and connectivity, and join with Minton’s personal tory.

Woodcut Panel Paintings
In 2006, after working almost exclusively as a sculptor for over twenty years Minton was sidelined by an ailing back. He became impressed by the possibilities and spontaneity allowed by wood block printing. After making several prints from his woodcuts he realized that what interested him was the woodblock itself. This served as the starting point for the woodcut paintings that quickly developed. The woodcut paintings are not obviously figurative like the sculpture.

“I study art history, not as a scholar, but to find points of desire—things that grab me. I’ve thought a lot about the difference between art that describes and art that evokes, or calls forth. Right now I’m pursuing a style of working that evolves as I’m doing it. These woodcuts interest me as series of pleasing shapes, textures and patterns. It’s all about line; the opposite of three-dimensional sculpture. In my wood cuts I can free myself of planning and work without a map.” Kimo Minton as quoted in the catalogue produced in 2007 by TEW Galleries for Kimo Minton’s exhibition titled “Improvisations”.

Form and Shape
Considered section by section, Minton’s sculpture is often out of proportion or off-kilter in some manner. Tension is produced through contrast: chunky and delicate, large and small, dominant and frail, primitive and sophisticated. The resulting sculptures often have masklike faces with almond-shaped eyes and are composed of geometric and eccentric forms. They have been compared with three dimensional cubist paintings. Torsos are fashioned from an agglomeration of cylinders, spheres and blocks. Layers of discs might represent a hip. As a whole, the resulting totemic sculptures often look like deities.

Color
In the early years Minton preferred to leave his sculptures unpainted to allow the grain and color of the wood to speak for itself. But in 1990’s he began to paint them. Over time his palette has developed from bold, primary colors to dessert colors, finally evolving into a highly original palette ranging from muted to brighter hues. Sometimes the paint is so translucent and flat it almost looks like a stain.

Exernal Links

 * High Museum of Art
 * TEW Galleries
 * Oglethorpe University Museum of Art