I grew up in Northern California, the single child of back-to-the-land parents who met at U.C. Berkeley during the Vietnam War. My early years were spent under the giant Redwoods taking goats on walks, creating communal banana slug, newt and centipede farms, and dressing up my pet rats and making them ride the dog.

I graduated from California College of Arts & Crafts in Oakland with a BFA in Photography in 1997 and now reside in Portland Oregon where I do fine art, commissions and occasional illustration.

My artwork is inspired by horticulture, marine biology, Art Nouveau, childhood experiences, religious art, Japanese Prints, stained glass, nostalgia, kitsch, mythology, old kid’s books, fantastical creatures, obsessions of the Victorian era, costume jewelry, riding the fine line between tacky and beautiful, & the endlessly bizarre manifestations of nature.

Some of my favorite artists are Ernst Haeckel, Arthur Rackham, Edward Gorey, Wayne Anderson, Judith Schaecter, Alphonse Mucha, Tamara Lempika, Edmund Dulac, Gustave Dore, Sebastiao Salgado, Chris Van Allsburg, Sue Coe, Pierre et Gilles, JJ Grandville, Antoni Gaudi and The House of Fabergé.

I like the interaction of light & dark, good and bad, innocence and complication, humour & gravity, and the reality of the natural world & the human need to idealize it. Oh yeah, and I really like glitter.

Kamala Dolphin-Kingsley
Feburary 2008