Helios Wave Print

Kimberly Marnell is an artist that was born August 22, 1977 in Syracuse, New York and has moved around North America most of her life. In her early years she attended public schools where she won an art competition at her school weekly and her interest in art began. Her art teacher appointed her to challenge her skills in a larger contest that involved several New York public schools. She took the challenge, competed and was awarded first place and money earnings at age seven. ​ In her mid-teen years, her family moved her across the country to Fountain Hills, Arizona. This is where she continued her love for art and creation and began the exploration of different mediums and different subjects. ​ In 1994 and 1995 she was awarded the National Art Honor Society Award. ​ Following high school, she continued with her education at Scottsdale Community College and Rio Salado Community College and earned an Associate Degree in Arts and Fine Arts while graduating with honors and was a member of Phi Theta Cappa. She met her husband and got married in 2006 and had two children, a boy and a girl. With her new little family, they decided to relocate to Carrollton, Texas to be around her husband’s side of their family. ​ In Arlington, Texas she continued her education at the University of Texas- Arlington moving towards a BA in Architecture. While working towards her degree she found happiness and contentment in a career in teaching painting classes of fifty to sixty people on a stage. Because being in front of large groups of people and speaking and teaching wasn’t new to her, so she entered a Dallas Art Battle Live painting Competition. She won first place which moved her to the semifinals competition that was supposed to be held April 2020. ​ In March 2020 all social interaction was eliminated, and all large group events were eliminated due to a global pandemic. Because of this change in social life teaching and competitions were not an option for her anymore, but she made it a point to continue to educate individuals with paint and art instruction with short videos on social media. Kimberly received an accumulative following of 30,000 people on the TikTok platform and is currently growing a following on the Instagram and the Pinterest platform. Several of her education videos hit viral status (one was viewed by 4.9 million people) and because of this she began receiving income for art again.