KIMBERLEE KOYM-MURTEIRA

Enclosure/Expansion

Enclosure/Expansion features moving image artworks by multimedia artist Kimberlee Koym-Murteira. The exhibition includes videos created with a 360 camera during the artist’s walks in nature. The distorted filming technique creates simultaneous sensations of floating and containment within imagery that wavers between abstraction and legibility. Koym-Murteira’s videos function as portals framed by expansive landscapes and vast oceans that provide a respite from the chaos of the built environment.

“…Spending time in nature allows me to tap into my resilience and feel the shape, light, and sensation of being surrounded by forest. Using a 360 camera, I document my practice in nature, capturing images that convey enclosure and expansion…”
— Kimberlee Koym-Murteira

Kimberlee Koym-Murteira creates bodycasts and self-portraits to capture significant moments, fostering personal growth of participants. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. In 2022, she received a grant from Immersive Arts Alliance for the Social Art Practice Project, Unseen to Seen. Her work has been shown at the DeYoung Museum, Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Gearbox Gallery, Museum of Sonoma, Kala Art Institute, Zero 1 Biennial, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Invisible Venue, Mission 17, The Lab, Sonoma State University, Plexus Projects, Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Future Places Festival, and more. Originally from Texas, Kimberlee’s connection to the environment was born on her family’s land near Austin.

Vanishing Sanctuary
2019, single channel video

Water Ceremony
2022, single channel video

The Land that saved me is Dying
2019, single channel video

Artist’s Statements

Spending time in nature allows me to tap into my resilience. I attune to this sacred space's allure of shape, light, and sensation. Using a 360 camera, I document this embodiment practice focused on connecting with the environment by capturing images that convey a sense of enclosure and expansion. The resulting photographs serve as acts of healing, yet also exhibit a fragmented and disembodied quality. To delve into these intangible states, I use these images and processes to convey a simultaneous sense of distortion, harmony, beauty, and apparition. In Vanishing Sanctuary, I captured Texas landscapes including my family's ranch that is currently being taken over by a quarry. As a child, I spent many holidays on this land, which provides solace and inspiration for my creative endeavors. It is disheartening to witness the transformation of this cherished childhood space, now being replaced by a noisy quarry that is turning the once-tranquil area into an unrecognizable terrain similar to the moon. The combination of the land's natural beauty, my family's care, and the act of creating in nature has had a deeply transformative effect on my life.

— Kimberlee Koym-Murteira