donna anderson kam

dateline: (08-07) 16:22 EST Trona, CA. (AP)--

dateline: (08-07) 16:22 PDT Trona, CA (AP)—
Pastel and conte on paper
50x90 inches

Exhibition history:

The de Young Open “On the Edge”
The de Young Museum
San Francisco, CA
October 10-January 3
2020-2021

Color into Line: Pastels from the Renaissance to the Present
Legion of Honor Museum
San Francisco, CA
October 9 - February 13
2021 - 2022

Museum Purchase:
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts Endowment Fund,
and the Achenbach Graphic Arts Council, 2020

Donna Anderson Kam’s dateline: (08-07) 16:22PDT Trona, CA (AP) was executed in 2020 during the shelter-in-place period of the COVID-19 quarantine. Her work involves a long process of observation that she translates into large drawings dedicated to pressing social issues, particularly the modern conflict between prosperity and sustainability. A monumental pastel measuring roughly four by eight feet, it was acquired by the Fine Arts Museums through The de Young Open, a juried exhibition of Bay Area artists that opened in October 2020 amidst the global pandemic. In the artist’s choice of pastel and her luminous palette, this anxious work becomes an expression of the will to survive, and to create, in spite of the obstacles.
Furio Rinaldi, Ph.D.
Curator, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Donna Anderson Kam currently lives and works in San Francisco. She received her BFA in painting, and a BA in art history from University of Colorado, Boulder, and a BFA in design from the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. She has exhibited widely including in 2012 when she was artist in residence at Recology San Francisco. Two of her works were selected for the 2020 exhibition The de Young Open, including dateline: (08-07) 16:22 PDT Trona, CA (AP) -, which is featured in the exhibition Color into Line: Pastels from the Renaissance to the Present.

Kam’s artistic practice is centered on the pastel medium, primarily dry pastel (also called chalk pastel). She finds it rewarding to work with the large chunky sticks for the luminous qualities they impart when applied to a white sheet of paper. Kam also enjoys the challenging feature that dry pastels cannot be mixed on a palette like oil paints, and consequently must be layered to show variations in color.

In 2008 Kam began working on large -scale pastels, and the following year she began the “dateline” series in which she utilized images taken from contemporary news sources. She created her own narratives for the images and re-staged the stories with actors. Photographs taken at those reenactments are then referenced in the resulting drawings. According to Kam, this multi step method distances her final work from it’s original source, creating works that are ambiguous and open.

In the example acquired by the Museums, the COVID-19 face coverings worn by the three young women identify the as from 2020, and other accessories (including a smartphone and earphones) and detritus surrounding them (a blue tarp, a computer keyboard, and an empty potato-chip bag) also indicate contemporary times. Kam sees her commitment to pastel as her contribution to it’s continuity as an artistic practice since the sixteenth century. This timeline is explored in Color into Line: Pastels from the Renaissance to the Present, on view at the Legion of Honor, October 9, 2021`, through February 13, 2022.
Karen Breuer,
Curator in Charge, Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

additional images from datelines series: