Kim Lowe is a contemporary artist, printmaker, painter and educator. Leaning into her and her family's whakapapa is the cornerstone of Kim's creations and the foundation of her creative explorations. Particularly in her assembled works, Kim merges the fluid gestural brushstrokes of her floating landscapes and ethereal spaces with the more concise mark-making of intaglio and relief printmaking in her symbolic designs. These works reflect identity, culture, and place, often defying categorisation and blurring established boundaries between techniques, categories, and practices.
In her formative years as an art student at Otago Polytechnic School of Art, Kim was taught by respected New Zealand printmaker Marilynn Webb (Ngāpuhi, Te Roroa, Ngāti Kahu). "Marilynn made me realise the wealth of symbolism in traditional art and really encouraged her students to explore their own identity." Today, Kim's practice is heavily influenced by her Pākehā and Chinese heritage and the interconnection with her husband's and children's whakapapa. Kim gives these familial connections visual form within her printmaking and painting practices, creating a meeting of ways; an embrace of difference; and the opportunity to harmoniously co-exist.
Born and raised in Invercargill, Kim graduated from Otago Polytechnic School of Art in 1996 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. In 1998, she completed a Diploma of Secondary Teaching from New Zealand's Graduate School of Education in Ōtautahi Christchurch and taught at Hillmorton High School until 2005. Kim gained a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and subsequently a Master of Fine Arts, from Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury, in 2006 and 2008. During this time, she was also an Assistant Lecturer in Printmaking at the school.
Kim has had many community-focussed positions in Ōtautahi Christchurch since, including Co-ordinator of Shared Lines: Sendai-Christchurch Art Exchange between Japan and New Zealand and Administrator of Aotearoa Chinese Artists (AChA). She has exhibited extensively-both nationally and internationally-won numerous awards, including the Olivia Spencer Bower Award in 2019, and has work held in both private and public collections including NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Collection and Te Puna o Waiwhetū Christchurch Art Gallery Collection.
Kim lives in Ōtautahi with her whānau and is currently Senior Lecturer of Art and Design at Ara Institute of Canterbury.