Some artists depict what’s already in front of us. Others open a doorway to something hidden—something ancient, personal, and impossible to name. Kimberly McGuiness is the latter. She possesses a rare talent for creating work that reads like a story passed down through time, rooted in nature, mythology, and imagination. Her art isn’t just visual—it’s a world unto itself.
McGuiness draws from deep wells. You’ll find horses, peacocks, symbols, and oracles—not as ornaments, but as vessels of meaning. She’s especially drawn to the beauty and mystery of the natural world, the pull of myth, and the surreal spectacle of circus imagery. Through these threads, she weaves a tapestry of emotion and memory. Viewers are invited to step in, not just to look, but to feel—like reading a poem with your whole body. Her art doesn’t explain. It resonates.
Let’s take a closer look at three of her works—each one a universe with its own energy, characters, and lore.
Zephira the Oracle of the Realm of Beneath & Becoming
Zephira isn’t just a painting. She’s a presence. McGuiness gives us a being who rules over what most of us never stop to see—the realm beneath. It’s not underworld in the traditional sense. It’s more like the interior. The quiet place where feelings begin before they have names. Where forgotten dreams wait.
The way Zephira is described—woven through roots and the waters of memory—tells you this is a painting meant to be sat with, not just viewed. Zephira exists in that shadowy place where emotion becomes story. Her message, “What you bury becomes what you bloom. Tend it with intention,” is both warning and encouragement. She isn’t here to comfort you. She’s here to ask something of you: to take responsibility for what you plant inside yourself.
The visual energy of the work is likely soft and subterranean, full of hidden lines and gentle pulses, like the slow shift of soil or the weight of water on stone. This is not spectacle. It’s intimacy.
Celtic Warrior
Aislinn, the subject of this piece, is all fire and focus. McGuiness paints her not as a generic heroine, but as a woman with a sacred charge. There’s history here. Lineage. Pain. Duty. Her “Crown of Thorns and Valor” is not just symbolic—it’s lived. The thorns suggest sacrifice. The roses that bloom in her wake are signs of life following struggle.
There’s a cinematic quality to Aislinn’s world. The way McGuiness describes her—riding with the sun at her back—feels like the final scene of an epic. But it’s not just about glory. Aislinn’s story is grounded in the land itself. The fabric of the place she protects is stitched with her story. She doesn’t fight for beauty—she is beauty, in its fiercest, most protective form.
This work might carry sharp edges, bold color, and mythic symbols, but it likely also holds a sense of stillness—a weight. The kind of silence that falls after the last arrow flies.
The Talisman
Unlike the previous two works, The Talisman feels like a spell that has yet to be activated. It’s described not as an object of power, but as a layered message. Memory, myth, and stardust—that’s what it’s made of. That tells us McGuiness is working from a place beyond the literal. She’s channeling something felt more than seen.
There’s an uneasiness in this piece, and that’s part of the point. To wear the talisman is to be vulnerable—to be “seen by the unseen.” There’s something deeply personal about that. The art challenges you. What do you remember? What have you forgotten on purpose?
Every element of the talisman—the feathers, the symbols—holds a key. But there’s no map. You either feel your way toward it or you don’t. McGuiness isn’t trying to explain these secrets. She’s holding space for whoever dares to find them.
Visually, it might be glowing, radiant, precise—but always with the feeling that something is watching back.
Kimberly McGuiness creates from a place that values meaning over perfection. She doesn’t decorate. She conjures. Her work asks you to slow down, let go of logic, and walk into the stories that are trying to find you. Whether it’s a goddess wrapped in earth and memory, a warrior who holds history in her body, or a talisman waiting for the right seeker—McGuiness gives you more than images. She gives you doors. You just have to decide if you’re ready to walk through.
