Sandra Kimzey Wimbish

Artist bio

Sandra Kimzey Wimbish currently lives and expresses her creativity in Clemmons, NC. Her art celebrates the beauty of the natural world—people, animals, flowers, and landscapes. Using a variety of mediums, and often combining them, Sandra’s art pieces come to life with acrylics, colored pencils, graphite, and ink.

Two of Sandra’s current focuses are her American Wildlife series, which includes both ink and graphite works, and her growing Sepia Tones series of acrylic canvases.

Sandra has exhibited and taught art in her previous homes in Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, and North Carolina. Later this year she will continue expanding her public art work with a mural and summer arts program in her Kansas hometown. One of her favorite public installations to create was the mural/mosaic combination she completed in 2019 at Laurel Hills Park in Raleigh, NC.

Artist Statement

My art is informed from my childhood in rural Kansas, as well as my many travels around the world—living and working in unique and exotic locations. Through all of these, I have learned to celebrate the beauty of people, cultures, and scenery I encounter.

I embrace and intermix a variety of mediums including acrylics, colored pencils, ink, and graphite. My greatest goal is to entice the viewer to enter and enjoy a world they might not have explored—whether because it is a location they’ve never been, or because they are seeing something familiar from a different vantage point or unique perspective and expression. My Two Color and Sepia Tones series are examples of presenting the common from a unique angle.

Multiple layers go into my highly detailed ink drawings, featuring ink and ink wash, stippling, and cross hatching. Old Soul—which took approximately 120 hours of inking, Bengal in Bamboo, Owl Tree, and Original Man exemplify my ink technique and expression, including a bit of whimsy.

My love for culture—derived in part from my linguistics field work—shines through in drawings and paintings that celebrate diversity and beauty of people and places around the world. Traditional costumes and rituals feature prominently in mixed media pieces such as Beauty in Beads and Color and Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony.

My teaching practice is built on the belief that everyone can learn and find pleasure in expressing themselves creatively through art. We might not all become masters, but we can enjoy ourselves. Learning the basics, then having freedom for self-expression and exploration was the model I thrived under, so it is the one I use when I teach.