KIRSTEN SIMS
Weekend in November, 2021
Colour Pencil on paper
900 x 1205 mm Framed

“This artist statement has been an impossible one to write. Since deciding to exhibit these drawings, I’ve started and stalled more times than I can count.

In March 2021 my world came crashing down when my partner Dale, the father of my son Finlay, died in a drowning accident after finishing a 3-day hike with friends in the Drakensberg mountains.

When I was finally ready to go back into my studio, I sat down to paint and nothing worked. What I needed to process was simply too big. The weight of my grief was too heavy. Paint was too heavy. My usual way of working stopped working and I couldn’t just go back to painting familiar landscapes and parties because the world I found myself in was a completely different place from the one I’d known before.”

- Kirsten Sims

 

KIRSTEN SIMS
In Person, 2021
Colour Pencil on paper
490 x 385 mm Framed

“Day after day I showed up in my studio hoping to escape, hoping that the imaginary worlds I usually get lost in would carry me far away. But I just couldn’t go there.”

- Kirsten Sims

KIRSTEN SIMS
The Tidal Pool at Camps Bay, 2021
Colour Pencil on paper
865 x 670 mm Framed

“Meanwhile the garden that Dale started to plant a year ago began to come alive. Every few days my mother would pick a single flower and put it on my desk. One day I picked up some colour pencils and I drew that day’s flower. Then the next and the next.”

- Kirsten Sims

KIRSTEN SIMS
Lost in the Light, 2021
Harvest Moon, 2021
Colour Pencil on paper
655 x 465 mm Framed

KIRSTEN SIMS
Tickle my Fancy, 2021
Colour Pencil on paper
490 x 385 mm Framed

KIRSTEN SIMS
The Fishpond at Babylonstoren, 2021
Colour Pencil on paper
660 x 460 mm Framed

KIRSTEN SIMS
Milk and Honey, 2021
Colour Pencil on paper
430 x 465 mm Framed

“It was as if my grief was driving me back to the beginning, back to art school basics. I had the voice of my high school art teacher in my head, and I suddenly understood things he tried to teach me 16 years ago. I started to find comfort in the lightness and fragility of the pencils. Their sensitive and vulnerable nature mirrored my internal world quite perfectly and I was finally able to go to those impossible places.”

- Kirsten Sims

KIRSTEN SIMS
Caught at St James, 2021
Colour Pencil on paper
490 x 385 mm Framed

KIRSTEN SIMS
Up and Down, Up and Down, Babylonstoren, 2021
Colour Pencil on paper
660 x 460 mm Framed

“This collection of drawings is in honour of my love, Dale Kilian. I will keep trying and failing to draw you for the rest of my life.”

- Kirsten Sims

KIRSTEN SIMS
Alix on the Stoep, Piketberg, 2021
Colour Pencil on paper
890 x 530mm Framed

KIRSTEN SIMS
Little by Little, 2021
Colour Pencil on paper
695 x 545 mm Framed