Kim Dacres (b. 1986, Bronx, NY)
Kim Dacres is a sculptor and mixed-media artist whose practice transforms discarded rubber—primarily tires—into powerful figurative forms. She wraps, dissembles, reassembles, and braids rubber layers over internal wooden armatures, treating the surfaces with enamel or spray paint to evoke skin, muscle, hair, and gesture. Dacres’ work explores presence, dignity, and cultural identity by reimagining materials often seen as refuse into resilient embodiments of Black subjectivity, agency, and narrative.
Dacres holds a BA in Political Science, Art Studio, and Africana Studies from Williams College (2008) and an MSc.Ed in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages K–12 from CUNY Lehman College (2010). Before turning to full-time studio practice, she spent a decade as an educator and school leader in New York City public schools.
Her solo and two-person exhibitions include Measure Me in Rotations (Charles Moffett, New York), Black Moves First (Gavlak, Palm Beach), and Wisdom Embedded in the Treads (Gavlak, Los Angeles). She has participated in group exhibitions such as Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists Since 1940 (Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth), Bronx Calling: The Sixth AIM Biennial (The Bronx Museum), and Dueling Consciousness (Zidoun-Bossuyt, Luxembourg).
Dacres has received the Bronx Recognizes Its Own (BRIO) Grant and the Artadia New York Award. Her sculptures are in the collections of institutions including the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the International African American Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, and others.
She works in Harlem and the Bronx, New York, living and creating in the place she draws both material and social inspiration.