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Paper Prototype: Kim Smith Claudel
The following description was submitted by the event organizer.
Carnation Contemporary presents new work by Kim Smith Claudel for her second solo show with the gallery. In Paper Prototype, Smith Claudel creates large-scale constructions from humble materials that are assembled as installations that question stability and celebrate playful exploration.
Paper Prototype is a minimal viable prompt. Still figuring it out, but committing to the essential with immediacy through form. This thing is the thing. Not just a stand-in for another [future] thing. A building block of nonlinear sequence, strung together on this process [progress?] on the verge of being complete…or collapsing. Then it can be free to evolve, or to drift away. Paper is simultaneously strong and fragile. Light and flimsy, organic, maleable, bendable, twistable, tearable, sewable. A medium for ideas to last unwillingly, contradicting preservation. It’s just a sketch, a note, just a doodle or a meandering thought. A rough draft; still, though, true.
Kim Smith Claudel is an interdisciplinary artist based in Portland, OR, whose work intersects painting, sculpture, installation, and performance through a wide range of media. Smith Claudel’s work has been exhibited internationally, including shows in Japan and Sweden, as well as throughout the United States. Recent solo exhibitions include The Painting Center (New York, 2024), Mt Hood Community College (Portland, 2025, and Carnation Contemporary (Portland, 2024). She is an active member of WAVE Contemporary artist collective and a recipient of the 2025 Career Opportunity Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission and Ford Family Foundation. Last October, she was awarded an artist residency at Building 5. She holds an MS in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab, as well as an MFA from the School of Visual Arts.