Kim Dacres is a Bronx-born Jamaican American visual artist and sculptor who lives in Harlem. Her work has been exhibited at A.I.R Gallery (NYC), Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park, Galleria Anna Marra (Rome), UTA Artist Space (Beverly Hills), Gavlak, (Los Angeles | Palm Beach), The Armory (NYC), REGULARNORMAL x ArtNoir (NYC), and Art Basel (Miami Beach). She most recently participated in the survey exhibition Black American Portraits at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and will be a part of the 2022 outdoor exhibition Godhead: Idols in the Time of Crisis, the 12th edition of Lustwarande in the Netherlands.

Kim uses found tires and rubber from automobiles and bicycles to create sculptures of ideas and significant people in her life and community. In the process of layering the materials, the rubber’s experience and journey transform into muscle, bone, skin, hair, and personal style that underscore the embedded value of a person’s experience. Each piece works to highlight black people, Blackness, and who is entitled to space and deserving of honorifics and monuments.

“Exploring the materiality and lived histories of found objects, and in particular tires, Kim Dacres’ idiosyncratic approach to sculpture and portraiture addresses the complexities of contemporary representation with sophisticated nuance and technical prowess,” stated Juror Susanna V. Temkin. 

“Kim Dacres repurposes scrap rubber, tires, and found objects to create sculptures that honor family members, friends, heroes, and other individuals of personal importance to the artist. These evocative works brilliantly combine formal ingenuity with a careful reconsideration of the form and function of memorial sculpture, resulting in a powerful and wholly original body of work,” remarked Juror Nat Trotman.