Ballston Beach 26

Author: Painter - Writer

Kim Gagné is a painter and writer born in Attleboro, Massachusetts. At eighteen, she attended the Swain School of Design in New Bedford, now part of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where she earned a BFA in oil painting. At Swain, Gagné studied painting with David Loffler Smith and Ben Martinez. During her third year, she received a fully funded scholarship to attend the nine-week Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture summer residency in Madison, Maine, where she made small landscape paintings. After graduating from Swain, Gagné moved to Manhattan and continued her study of oil painting with Paul Resika and Leland Bell in the MFA program at Parsons School of Design’s New School. She later returned to Massachusetts and began a career with Verizon as a design engineer. In 2019, Gagné received a fellowship to attend the month-long Jentel Artist Residency in Banner, Wyoming. In 2024, she earned an MFA in nonfiction from Southern New Hampshire University’s Mountainview program. Gagné’s paintings and writing are rooted in the childhood, people, places, and values that formed her. Painting and writing are how she investigates the world—through image, language, color, and lived experience. She lives and works on Cape Cod, and her studio is located in the 204 Cultural Arts Municipal Building in Harwich, Massachusetts. View all posts by Painter - Writer