Kimberlee Joy Roth graduated from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities with an MFA in Ceramics and an Art History minor in 2007. It’s Plastic, her fall 2012 solo exhibition at The Catherine G. Murphy Gallery at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota raised both awareness of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans and $1,143 for The Algalita Marine Research Institute in Long Beach, California.
She is a 2013 McKnight Artist Fellow in Ceramics and a Fiscal Year 2016 and 2011 recipient of an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum; Norman and Evangeline Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion, Augsburg University; Mayo Clinic Rochester (Minnesota); 71 France Apartments, Edina, Minnesota; and the Lincoln Arts and Culture Foundation in Lincoln, California. Sections from her 2016 solo exhibition What We Have To Lose, are on permanent loan at The Owatonna Arts Center, Owatonna, MN, the MacRostie Art Center, Grand Rapids, MN and Ridgewater College’s Business Development Center, in Hutchinson, MN.
From 2007 to 2019 she was the technician for the Art and Art History Department and The Catherine G. Murphy Gallery at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN. Currently employed in the Art Department at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, she is the Ceramics Technician and an adjunct professor for Introduction to Ceramics. She is co-president of Minnesota Women Ceramic Artists and maintains a ceramic studio in the Northeast Arts District of Minneapolis.
Throughout history, rhythmic arrangements of ornamental embellishments have enriched the surfaces of architecture, furniture, and clothing, as well as metal, glass, and ceramic fine art objects. The Art Nouveau period’s use of strong curvilinear and varied thickness of line created complex and sophisticated designs that appeared deceptively simple. This aesthetic along with the spirals, ogival arches and trefoils of Islamic and Moorish architecture and the lotus petals, clouds and waves of Korean and Chinese ceramics are the primary influences on my work. Playing with these motifs allows me to explore, and further develop and understand, more complex color and form relationships.
My current work includes repetitive arrangements of stacked forms that are stylized flowers and leaves. Some arrangements have background tiles, some combine silk screening on panel, all include the animals that survive within the microcosm of flowering plants. The underlining theme of my work is a response to environmental issues caused by humanity, specifically global warming, which causes a plethora of challenges to the global flora and fauna on land and sea. These include diminishing water resources for migratory birds and mammals, less productive growing seasons and political upheaval both of which cause resettlement of large populations of people, and the knowledge that within my lifetime humanity has irrevocably started the complete destruction of life on our planet by burning fossil fuels and increasing the human population to unsustainable numbers. And so ironically, I make work that represents the beauty on this planet, reflects the joy of living, and the historical creativity of humanity.