If there were a road map through multimedia artist Laura Kimpton’s
soul, it would be paved with words and birds. The Fairfax-based artist, best known for Burning Man’s “Monumental Word” series, has
filled the playa with enormous words, including LOVE, BELIEVE
and EGO, since 2009.
But for every word that Kimpton — who is severely dyslexic — has
burned, there’s also been an element of flight. Kimpton covered her
first word, MOM, with hundreds of cutouts of birds, a motif she’s
explored in her work since 2002, when her father, the hotelier Bill
Kimpton, died. “All my work is about the heaviness of words or the
heaviness of your thoughts,” says Kimpton, who received a master’s
degree in psychology from the University of San Francisco. “The
birds represent living free from those thoughts.”
While Kimpton is best known for her Burner work, the 52-year-
old single mom is also a gifted painter and collage artist. She
recently created a series of stunning self-portraits, featuring images
of herself in bird costumes, held in frames that feel almost altar-like,
composed of crown-molding fragments, candles, books and birds.
She’s also working on an eight-foot-high multimedia obelisk covered
with sports trophies and videos of “EGO” burning.
“What sets Laura apart is how soulful her work is, and how edgy
too,” says Schon, whose gallery will be hosting Kimpton’s one-
woman show Buck Shot starting November 10. “It’s a little gritty
and messy, but it’s very conceptual and has a lot of depth.”
Her words “BELIEVE” and “LOVE” and “DREAM” have been
installed every where from China to Virginia to a winery in Santa
Rosa. At places like Burning Man and concerts for Widespread
Panic, a band she follows regularly, Kimpton is something of a celeb-
rity. But in Fairfax, she enjoys anonymity. “That’s one thing I love
about Fairfax,” says Kimpton. “I’ve been living here since I was 26
and nobody knows who I am.”
LAURA KIMPTON
