"What Is This Gold Toothed Beast" by Kia Neill
“I have started to use image transfers on found wood and rusty metal as an attempt to overlap mining history with modern day endeavors in seeking fortune and sanctuary in the Rocky Mountains.”
Carbondale Arts presented “What Is This Gold Toothed Beast” a solo exhibition by mixed media artist Kia Neill at the Carbondale Arts Gallery, from March 3 - April 6, 2023. The community was invited to the opening reception on First Friday, March 3, from 5-7pm at The Launchpad, with an artist talk at 5:30pm.
A group show featuring artists at SAW (Studio for Arts+Works) opened the same night in the second gallery space.
Kia Neill is a mixed media artist working in photography, drawing & painting, collage and found materials. Her work is inspired by the push-pull relationship between human use of landscape and the land constantly reclaiming itself, as well as her own sense of spirituality in relation to nature.
Compositionally, Kia uses color and abstraction metaphorically to suggest an ephemeral experience or energy within mountain landscape, to suggest multiple points of time, or perhaps imply the land as a whimsical “beast” constantly in motion. While she has always been attracted to the old dilapidated mines of Colorado, more recently Kia is considering the other ways we “mine” the mountains.
Thank you, Sponsor!
Both “What Is This Gold Toothed Beast” by Kia Neill and the group show featuring artists at SAW (Studio for Arts+Works) were generously sponsored by Jill and Alleghany Meadows. Thank you!
Kia Neill, mixed media artist, Alma, CO
Kia Neill is native to Chicago IL, and has lived in various parts of the country before finding home in Alma, Colorado. She received her MFA from The University of California San Diego and has taught art for over 20 years, ranging from universities to non-profit art centers. She currently teaches in Breckenridge Creative Arts, for The Colorado Photographic Art Center, and Think 360 Arts. She has produced a number of commissions for Southwest Airlines Hobby International Airport, City of Houston Department of Public Waste, The Children’s Museum of Denver Mariposa Campus, the Aspen Police Department, the Town of Silverthorne, Town of Breckenridge, Town of Alma, and most recently for Meow Wolf Denver Convergence Station. She is also a former Wilderness Workshop Artist-in-residence.
Learn more about the artist at kianeill.com
or on Instagram @kianeillart
Click here to read all about Kia’s artist residency with Wilderness Workshop in the fall of 2017.
Click here to learn about Kia’s installation “Melting of Mines” at the Meow Wolf location in Denver, CO, “Convergence Station”.