Kim Vose Jones is a Fredericton-based installation artist who spent her childhood wandering the forests of Southern Ontario, building unstable treehouses on other people’s properties. Her many eclectic and wide-ranging life experiences fuel her art practice—from working at a family-planning clinic on the Afghan-Pakistani border, to visiting snow monkeys in Jigokudani Park, Japan. Her art research has taken her from the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, to the Ringling Circus Museum in Sarasota, Florida.
Vose Jones has exhibited in Spain, France, the United States and Canada. She is the recipient of several ArtsNB Creation Grants, the Studio Watch Emerging Artist of the Year Award from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery (2011), and the President’s Award from Maine College of Art (2012). She holds an MFA in Studio Art from Maine College of Art (Portland, Maine), and a BA in Women’s Studies and Religion from Concordia University (Montreal, Quebec).
Kim works as an academic researcher, curator and educator. She has worked as an MFA mentor for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in the Fine Arts program at St. Thomas University (Fredericton, New Brunswick).
Life Boat: message in a bottle
Life Boat presents an allegory of transitional precariousness: a ghostly vessel, filled with diverse occupants experiencing various degrees of vulnerability, all struggling together to reach a distant shore. Water crossings place travelers in an in-between state; they require ingenuity. Humans have historically used many materials to build boats, including discarded plastic bottles which now serve as both symbols of waste and life-giving necessities in some regions. My water-bottle life raft tips to one side, caught by a wave and tossed ashore. A crowd of animal figures confront their situation. Some spill over the edges, while others help, and hang on for dear life. During this residency, I invite members of the public to come and see the project’s construction and visitors are invited to write private messages, each to be placed in one of the raft’s water bottles—resulting in a community collaboration that reflects the collective dreams, hopes, and fears of our traumatic age.
The project is currently funded by an ArtsNB 2021 Creation Grant
Hours in studio:
Tuesday 12-5 pm
Wednesday: 12-4 pm
Thursday: 10am-7 pm
Friday: 10am-5 pm
Saturday: 10am-5 pm
Sunday: 12-5 pm
