Ohio porcelain sculptor Kimberly Chapman focuses on what women endure. Her aim is to shed light on dark topics including silencing women, domestic violence, women who fall victim to easy prey, those incarcerated in mental asylums and others who became circus sideshow sensations. Her creamy white objects force the viewer to contemplate universal cruelty and injustice through the female lens.
Hand-building, slip-casting and press-molding techniques are employed. The clay is stretched and pulled to encourage an “other worldly” appearance. Clear glaze and luster are used sparingly so not to cover the essence of the clay’s natural beauty.
Her traveling exhibition, Eighty-Six Reasons for Asylum Admission, includes 40 ceramic sculptures with tintypes of the artist as patient. This teaching collection has toured university galleries, museums and historical venues. Heavily steeped in research, the artist illuminates the female asylum experience through gold-masked women in straight jackets, trophies to male medical misogyny, dire toothbrush cabinets, patients dissolving in bed sheets and gauze wrapped outstretched hands..
Freedom Fighter: A Seat at the Roundtable, attacks the Roe v. Wade overturn. Fruit garlands shape a uterus with lustered IUD and ovaries on a fully armored female bust with a black side braid. A gauntlet laden with female iconography and a Madonna and child chest shield reflect the importance of being battle ready.
Kimberly’s work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions with shows scheduled through 2026. She has participated in over 50 curated and juried exhibitions since her 2017 graduation from the Cleveland Institute of Art where she won the school’s most prestigious award. Prior to that, she spent three decades marketing corporations and colleges.
Her article “Out of the White Cube” was published in Ceramic Monthly, Oct. 2022. Other feature stories include: The Cleveland Arts Network Journal, Mar. 2021, Cleveland Magazine’s Community Leader, Feb. 2020, Northeast Ohio’s Canvas, Spring 2019, and Ceramics Monthly, Dec. 2018.
She is a member of the Cleveland Institute of Art Advisory Council and is a past member of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Women’s Council. Most recently she joined the Ohio Advisory Group to the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Hand-building, slip-casting and press-molding techniques are employed. The clay is stretched and pulled to encourage an “other worldly” appearance. Clear glaze and luster are used sparingly so not to cover the essence of the clay’s natural beauty.
Her traveling exhibition, Eighty-Six Reasons for Asylum Admission, includes 40 ceramic sculptures with tintypes of the artist as patient. This teaching collection has toured university galleries, museums and historical venues. Heavily steeped in research, the artist illuminates the female asylum experience through gold-masked women in straight jackets, trophies to male medical misogyny, dire toothbrush cabinets, patients dissolving in bed sheets and gauze wrapped outstretched hands..
Freedom Fighter: A Seat at the Roundtable, attacks the Roe v. Wade overturn. Fruit garlands shape a uterus with lustered IUD and ovaries on a fully armored female bust with a black side braid. A gauntlet laden with female iconography and a Madonna and child chest shield reflect the importance of being battle ready.
Kimberly’s work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions with shows scheduled through 2026. She has participated in over 50 curated and juried exhibitions since her 2017 graduation from the Cleveland Institute of Art where she won the school’s most prestigious award. Prior to that, she spent three decades marketing corporations and colleges.
Her article “Out of the White Cube” was published in Ceramic Monthly, Oct. 2022. Other feature stories include: The Cleveland Arts Network Journal, Mar. 2021, Cleveland Magazine’s Community Leader, Feb. 2020, Northeast Ohio’s Canvas, Spring 2019, and Ceramics Monthly, Dec. 2018.
She is a member of the Cleveland Institute of Art Advisory Council and is a past member of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Women’s Council. Most recently she joined the Ohio Advisory Group to the National Museum of Women in the Arts.