Tim Klein | Sea of Antiquity

Description

Tim is a Brisbane painter with a creative practice developed over four decades.
Raised on the NSW mid north coast, the beach and bush served as a constant
backdrop and refuge. His family home was filled with books, history, religious
iconography and a constant stream of people. Though an academic father
discouraged art studies, Tim began painting in his own time and talking with the
art teacher during lunch.
After completing studies in psychology and youth work he moved to West End
Brisbane where he established his first painting studio and began connecting
with other artists for the first time in the the local queer arts scene. This was a
rich context for developing his painting practice while also expanding into
collage, assemblage and installation works. During the 90s Tim exhibited in
multiple group and solo shows, and working as a community artist he helped
establish the “Starving Artist Market” events, youth arts festivals and countless
creative workshops across South East Queensland.
In the late 90s Tim’s profession pivoted from community arts to therapy.
Completing further study, he began practicing as a psychologist. In the studio,
Tim focused on honing his craft as a painter completing private commissions but
refraining from exhibiting his work. Tim returned to showing publicly again in
2023 as a finalist in the Royal Queensland Art Society’s Brisbane Portrait Prize
Salon de Refuses.
“My work journey has always been an ongoing dialogue/tension between
my identity as an artist and my identity as a therapist. At times they
compete with each other but ultimately they inform each other: I’m a better
therapist when I paint and I’m a better painter when I’m working with
people. “
Tim works across a range of styles and subjects, from detailed realistic portraits
to abstract colour-fields. His work is always personal and relational; and
typically narrative and gestural. Background is equally important to foreground;
with the background often the final layer which defines the subject. Tim’s palette
embraces colour; bright but rarely unnatural, his symbolic language often
emerges from tonal and linear experimentation.
The current body of work mixes personal diary, subconscious archaeology and
children’s storybook theme. Usually unplanned the works are process driven,
beginning as playful pencil scribble and marks. Layers of cold wax and oil follow
which are shoveled, scraped and scratched across the paper until the subject is
finally discovered. Textural and symbolic, Tim’s works invite contemplation and
interpretation.