Kimberlee Koym

Kimberlee’s studio, Embodied in the Making, focuses on creating bodycasts and self-portraits with participants to capture a significant moment in time. This process helps individuals feel recognized and fosters their ongoing personal growth. Kimberlee engages somatic connection – a relationship to the body in creation and exhibition – to respond to the complexity of power in relation to ecology and feminism. Employing tenets of embodiment to conjoin environmental concerns and social justice. Originally from Texas, Kimberlee’s connection to the environment was born on her family’s land near Austin. She holds an M.F.A. from Mills College (2007), an M.A. in Scenography from Central St Martin’s London(1999) and teaches at Diablo Valley College, CCA, and Cal State East Bay.

Her work has been shown nationally and internationally. In 2022, Immersive Arts Alliance awarded her a grant to create the Social Art Practice Project, Unseen to Seen. In Northern California, she has shown her work at the DeYoung Museum(2023/24), Melissa Morgan Fine Art (2022), Gearbox Gallery (2020), the Museum of Sonoma (2018), Kala Art Institute(2017),  the Zero 1 Bienniale (2012), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (2008), Invisible Venue (2008),Mission 17 (2007), The Lab (2005), and Sonoma State University (2002). Other venues include Plexus Projects (2023) in Brooklyn and the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art (2001).  In Europe, her work has been shown at the Future Places Festival (2008), the Biennial of Mediterranean Young Artist in Saravejo, Bosnia(2001), ‘Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin.(2001), Porto 2000 Capital of Culture, Cultural Center Malaposta(2000), and  Gallery ZDB (2000). She has been awarded residency grants by Lugar Comum in Lisbon, Portugal (2004) and Kala Institute in Berkeley, CA (2017).