The Bruce Museum is proud to present a selection of work by its inaugural artist-in-residence Kimberly Klauss (American, b. 1977). Klauss returned to her hometown of Stamford, Connecticut for the residency after living most of her life outside of the United States. Klauss lived in Tokyo as a child and moved in her early twenties to Europe, living in Dresden, London, and Munich. Her life experience as a foreigner is central to her artistic practice, informing her exploration of the knowability of oneself and others in paint and monoprint.

Klauss spent her residency creating artwork in response to two abstract works by the artists George Morrison (Ojibwe, 1919–2000) and McArthur Binion (American, b. 1946), both previously on loan from Art Bridges’ permanent collection in the exhibition Tracing Lineage: Abstraction and its Aftermath. Reflecting on the artists’ use of personal artifacts to document a sense of self and place, Klauss has created six new works that draw on her own identity and origin story. Klauss presents several iterations of her current self in a series of haunting life-sized colleges of her body, using an adaptation of an ancient print technique that originated in China and Japan. Equally imposing and intimate, these delicate works on paper contrast with a collection of small ink drawings in which the artist approximates a memory, an internalized image of her mother based on a family photograph. Together with an imprint of the family’s first quilt, the works in this exhibition reveal essential personal truths about the artist while also contending with the evasive nature of the self and memory.

About the artist:

Kimberly Klauss was selected as the Bruce Museum’s inaugural artist-in-residence due to her innovative approach to figurative painting and her demonstrated commitment to combining art and science within her practice. Through her intimate portraits and depictions of interiors, she explores the limits of perception and the portrayal of oneself and others, questioning whether the self is fixed, knowable, and unique.

Klauss’s work gained wider recognition in 2017, when she was a finalist in the televised painting competition Portrait Artist of the Year. She has shown in numerous group exhibitions including at the ING Discerning Eye; Young Space; and Compton Verney Gallery. Klauss’s work is held in the collections of Soho House and Ruth Borchard Next Generation Collection.

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Support for Kimberly Klauss: Primary Sources is generously provided by CT Department of Economic and Community Development, CT Humanities, Gabelli Funds, and The Charles M. and Deborah G. Royce Exhibition Fund.

Kimberly Klauss (American, b. 1977)
Mom Memory, 2024
Oil on canvas, 12 x 16 x 2 in.
Courtesy of the artist

George Morrison (1919-2000)
Collage X Landscape, 1975
Weathered wood, 48 1/2 x 3 x 70 in.
Art Bridges. Photo: Steve Paneccasio.

McArthur Binion (b. 1946)
DNA: Sepia: V, 2016
Oil paint stick, sepia ink, and paper on panel, 96 x 72 in.
Art Bridges. © McArthur Binion
Photography by Edward C. Robison III.

Kimberly Klauss (American, b. 1977)
Mom Rememory, 2024
Ink and oil on paper, each 5 ½ x 7 ½ in.
Courtesy of the artist

Kimberly Klauss (American, b. 1977)
Self Instance I, 2024
Oil on waxed mulberry paper, 96 x 37 in.
Courtesy of the artist