Kim Carpenter's The New York Show

From the artist – Kim Carpenter AM

Having been to New York eight times over 4½ decades for work (Theatre of Image) and pleasure, Kim returned from last year’s trip to open up his box of visual diaries that he had kept over that period. These illuminating diaries have become the springboard for this exhibition.

The diaries full of sketches and notes bring back indelible memories that reflect the changes in the people and the place.

I have steeped myself in a New York state of mind since returning home from the recent trip last year.

It’s been such a pleasure to open my box of visual diaries and rediscover what I had recorded and to remember the different times and circumstances of each visit compared to the 2024 trip.

Overall, my inspiration for these new pictures has been driven by the timelessness, energy, positivity, vitality, power, intensity and diversity of the place and its people – a melting pot of fascinating people and stories.

All these qualities have fed my imagination – but above all I realised it’s the people that I found most interesting to look at.

So, as a result, each picture tells of a personal observation or engagement with native New York characters in the context of their lives in a bustling world of canyons of pencil-thin skyscrapers, the smells emanating from the melting pot of cuisines, the cultural institutions, the fascinating people (from rich to poor) to the sanctuary of Central Park.

I miss it all but am happy to be creating an homage to New York City.

As long as I immerse myself in creating the pictures I feel I am metaphysically still in New York City.

“His core natural gift is his drawing and painting underpinned by highly individual vision of the world.”

“There is a wonderful kind of youthful, fresh spontaneity about Kim's art. It is fresh and fruity – and honest”,

Edmund Capon OBE AC (late Director of The Art Gallery of NSW), Australian Financial Review.