Kim Roberts, MA

Growing up in DC, and later as a student in Paris and London, Kim gravitated to art museums as if to a place of worship, or a source of nourishment.

While earning a Master’s degree in Psychology from Naropa University Kim developed an obsession with Ashtanga yoga and Buddhist meditation. After working for years as a psychotherapist, she then spent spent the better part of 15 years living in South and Southeast Asia leading retreats that offered contemplative practice, psychology and creative process as tools for personal growth.

She is the author of two books: Ashtanga Yoga for Beginner’s Mind and Toward a Secret Sky: Creating Your Own Modern Pilgrimage.

While painting has always been part of her personal practice, she committed to making art when she discovered the encaustic wax medium in 2015.

She started painting seriously while in India, and discovered the encaustic medium when she moved to the Colorado Rocky Mountains, where she is an active member of the Colorado Artist Association. Her work was recognized by Shumei International, a worldwide arts organization, and is represented in private collections around the world.

Kim divides her time between Crestone and Denver, Colorado. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

Art has always been my refuge - a sacred, secret place where I could step out of conceptual mind and explore the world of feelings and alternative realities. Growing up in DC, and later as a student in Paris, museums felt to me like places of worship, or sources of nourishment.

I’ve spent much of my adult life as an expat, teaching contemplative practice and creative process. Spending so much time in a foreign culture reinforces universal themes of what it means to be human, and also presents a unique view into our differences.

At a certain point, I realized that making art was the only thing that allowed me to quiet my mind completely and simultaneously experience its vastness. Meditation certainly helps the process. I derive inspiration from dreams, myth, literature, and especially from the nature spirits in Crestone, Colorado, where I live. Recognized as a spiritual “power place” where seekers and retreatants come to access inner wisdom, the San Luis Valley and surrounding Sangre de Cristo mountain range set the stage for a mystical environment where “the veil is thinner.”

The nature of the encaustic monotype process leaves an element of chance to each creation, adding to the mystery of how co-creation occurs. As a devoted practitioner and teacher of yoga and meditation for over 25 years, my spiritual practice has gradually evolved into making art.

My hope is to convey how art is a bridge to this experience of mind that connects us with something larger than ourselves, and encourages us to realize that we are not alone.