Laguna Art Museum has organized ‘Kim Manfredi: View with a Grain of Sand’ as part of its Art + Nature initiative. The exhibition runs from October 3, 2026, through January 18, 2027.
‘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. Its works draw from direct observation of elemental phenomena, transforming place into an abstract visual language.
Color is layered through drips, bleeds and oversprays, with the paintings evoking the vitality and unpredictability of nature. Fragmentation within the compositions reflects humanity’s imprint on the environment.
The exhibition’s title comes 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 people and the world they inhabit.
Kim Manfredi is an American painter whose work moves fluidly between abstraction and representation, with material-forward paintings informed by art history, climate and place. She earned her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1988 and returned to complete an MFA in painting in 2009, studying under Grace Hartigan and Joyce Kozloff. Manfredi will join curators Elizabeth Armstrong and Daniell Cornell for a conversation exploring the exhibition and discussing the ideas, materials and process behind the work.
