Kelly Karim
Atlanta, GA
Kelly Karim is an Atlanta-based painter who loves contemplating moods in relation to environments, uncovering vibrant dreamlike life & movement.
MessageKelly Karim was born in 1964 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and spent much of her childhood running, exploring woods and creeks. Her adventurous spirit led her to Atlanta, Georgia. During her last semester before graduating with a Psychology degree from Georgia State University, she had to take an art class, which she internally resisted. Art was just too personal to be graded or judged, then art won her heart. She was hooked and continued to take area art classes, like metalsmithing and drawing. She started with jewelry design and small sculpture, some of which was included at Illumina Gallery and in local juried shows, including Eyedrum and GSU’s annual art show.
Kelly knew she loved creating with colors, texture and movement, and how strokes of a brush could affect mood and meaning. But painting soon gave way to another adventure. In the mid-80s, close to her 21st birthday, she became a co-owner of a Mexican restaurant, Tapatio, which was located in Little Five Points. She learned about running a restaurant the day they opened! Although her role in the restaurant business lasted seven years, her memories of traveling to various parts of Mexico during that time remains.
After 20 years and two grown children later, she reemerged as a painter…and a survivor of a traumatic attack. Her emotional healing began through the beauty found in a tiny tranquil beach town in the Yucatan called Chicxulub Puerto. Though the size of the town is small, the significance of the place is monumental. It’s known as ground zero for the meteorite hitting the earth and destroying the dinosaurs.
In 2018, she invited two artist friends to her home in Mexico and they spent days just painting. Her creative spirit was awakened. Back in Atlanta, Kelly started taking art classes again. This time with Sylvia Cross, owner of Sycamore Place Gallery. Kelly’s first solo exhibition was scheduled to take place just as pandemic social distancing efforts became the norm. For now, she’s patiently waiting and painting until her September 2020 debut.
Kelly resides in east Atlanta surrounded by her greatest joy-givers, her husband, James; sons, Jacob and Josh; and dog, Teddy. Throughout the years, she’s always had creative things going on, including hosting kids art camps and making amazing sculptural cakes (until kids just wanted a regular ol’ cakes!) When she’s not painting, she finds that dancing is one of the best spirit-lifters.
Statement
What happens when the imagined collides with reality? Several life blows, my spirit strangled at the hands of a stranger. Yet one decision awakened life's colored dreams: creating a haven in a small coastal town in Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula, believed to be ground zero for the catastrophic asteroid 66 millions years ago, destroying the dinosaurs. Chicxulub. A place where the hot, salt water makes things rust quickly, not the souls of its people.
I began painting this series, "Back in Time to Chicxulub." Women confident and secure. Men, strong and vulnerable....and kind. Peace and beauty in the face of brutal elements manifested in movement, color and gesture. Even my darkest darks are void of black, not because of fear, by the absence of fear. Light and color communicate emotions, rather than detailed faces. There is a soft vibrancy of mixing paint to capture depth and heart of both brokenness and resilience. Broken signs. Resilient People. The place where life itself could have ended is the place where I began again. Resiliency of my humanity exposed.
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