Kim Dorland

Kim Dorland (born 1974) is a contemporary Canadian painter based in Toronto. He is best known for his thickly painted, fluorescent landscapes, super-thick portraiture, and his use of multiple painting mediums per canvas.

Life and career Dorland was born in Wainwright, Alberta He received his B.F.A from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 1998 and completed his Master's of Fine Art at York University in 2003.

Dorland first gained attention with his paintings of suburbia which drew heavily on nostalgia from his days as a teen growing up in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. These paintings of bush parties, fist fights and wooded areas on the edges of suburbia were characterized by fluorescent under-paintings and thick passages of impasto. Dorland became known for the thickness of his paint, particularly in his dense portraits (primarily of his wife, Lori) where the paint is piled on so thick in places that he often had to use screws to secure it. That same year he was named The Globe and Mail's Artist of the Year.

Exhibitions Dorland's work has been exhibited at galleries and museums in Toronto, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, London, Milan, Vancouver and Denver including the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (solo), the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (solo), the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Selected collections Takashi Murakami Audain Art Museum, Whistler, Canada Contemporary Art Foundation, Tokyo, Japan Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada Richard Prince Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, Canada The Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Montréal, Canada Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, USA