Kim Manfredi: View with a Grain of Sand

An exhibition of paintings exploring perception, landscape and the human desire to impose meaning on the natural world, drawing from direct observation of elemental phenomena. About View with a Grain of Sand is an exhibition of paintings that explores perception, landscape and the human desire to impose meaning on the natural world. The works draw from direct observation of elemental phenomena, transforming place into an abstract visual language. Using color layered with drips, bleeds and oversprays, the paintings evoke the vitality and unpredictability of nature. Fragmentation within the compositions reflects humanity's imprint on the environment while also offering moments of visual play. The exhibition's title is drawn from Wisława Szymborska's poem View with a Grain of Sand, which reflects on human insignificance within a vast, objective universe and seeks to dissolve the illusion of separation between ourselves and the world we inhabit. Like poetry, painting offers an incomplete and metaphorical language, pointing toward subjects that exceed or are even indifferent to description. Through attention to fleeting/ephemeral qualities, new ways of seeing emerge. The works invite viewers to reconsider their relationship to nature and their place within it. Kim Manfredi: View with a Grain of Sand is organized by Laguna Art Museum as part of the Art + Nature initiative. Kim Manfredi is an American painter whose work moves fluidly between abstraction and representation. Her material-forward paintings are informed by art history, climate, and place. She earned her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 1988 and returned to complete her MFA in painting in 2009, studying under Grace Hartigan and Joyce Kozloff. Early in her career, Manfredi was represented by C. Grimaldis Gallery and has held residencies at BoxoPROJECTS, RUC, the Vermont Studio Center, VCCA, and Maryland Art Place. Recent solo exhibitions include Bloom at Patricia Sweetow Gallery and Lady Lazarus at Royale Projects, both in Los Angeles. She was also featured in Tutto a Tempo at the Camus Museum in Breno, Italy. In 2024, Manfredi was awarded the Torrance Art Museum Fellowship and attended the Cycladic Arts Residency in Paros, Greece. Her painting Sillmangreen was acquired by the Palm Springs Art Museum for its permanent collection. She is currently preparing an exhibition of her Greek paintings and sculpture at the Torrance Art Museum in summer 2026 and is developing a solo exhibition and public commission for the Laguna Art Museum, opening in fall 2026. Read more Toggle Painting