About

Kimbal Bumstead exhibits his bold artwork with his interdisciplinary artistry. He brought his fantastic abstract paintings to Studio 73’s Artist Takeover in 2019 in which light reflected off the artwork. He also practices interactive performances with his work as well as participatory mapping.

What is your background?

I was born in Lewisham in 1986 and moved to St Alban’s when I was about 10 years old. I studied Fine Art at the University of Leeds but I did not start painting in any serious way until around 3 years after graduating. I was more focused on performance art and video installation. I’ve always loved painting but I did not really consider it as being practical since it meant needing to be in one place, and at the time I was more focused on hitch-hiking from place to place doing performance art and making videos about stories that I collected from people that I met along the way.

Who or what is your inspiration?

I am interested in chance encounters, navigating a dialogue between chaos and control. I’m interested in material processes, letting nature or chemistry ‘do its thing’ and watching how traces of things that happen are left behind – like scuff marks on a door, or the residue of melted ice cream on the pavement. I am inspired by both real and imagined environments and how experiences can be captured through abstraction. 

What drives you?

For me, painting is a way of playing, and my way of communicating; perhaps with the world, perhaps with myself. It is therapeutic, frustrating, pleasurable and compulsive. Making a painting is a process that feels really vital, a way of working something out and a way of letting things go.