An Ode to Monet: Inside the Cover of The Secret Garden

April 3, 2024

Art

Interviews

Nesha Ruther

Writer at Bond & Grace

While Kim Ahonoukoun’s artwork draws from the legacy of the great impressionists, nothing about her journey is conventional. The French Canadian artist originally planned on becoming a lawyer, completing law school before deciding to pivot into event planning. “I did event planning for 14 years until COVID shut the world down,” she says. A highly intuitive person, Kim sensed even before the pandemic broke out that she was ready for a change. “I knew I needed to switch things around and so I was actually going to start doing wellness retreats.”

It was because of this interest in wellness retreats that Kim began a practice of daily guided meditation, tuning into herself and her desires in order to determine her next step. It was during one of these sessions that she had a breakthrough. “I had a vision, voice, whatever you can call it, that told me I needed to continue Claude Monet’s legacy by starting oil painting, which I had never done in my entire life.”

At 35 years old, Kim had barely ever picked up a paintbrush, let alone experimented with the highly technical art of oil painting. “I always was an artsy kid, don’t get me wrong, I played music and I was doing arts and crafts all the time, but I had never been to art school. Every time I was at a crossroads where I had to choose between something artsy and something rational, I chose the latter.”

Yet despite the life choices that took her away from the arts, Kim had artistic talent deep inside of her, simply waiting to be tapped into. “The first time I painted, I painted water lilies. I was one month into an art academy course I found, just learning the basics and I sat down and painted a very small 20x16 painting of water lilies, which I called Midnight in the Everglades. Afterward, I called my mom and brother and sent them the painting. They were like, ‘Who did this?’ When I told them I painted it they said, ‘No, no way, not possible.’”

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Kim’s artistic talent, which had lain dormant for so long, finally erupted. “I think my soul wanted to express something for a long time. Guided meditation is a powerful tool to go deep into your soul and I think I really channeled something within me. I was stunned,” she says, laughing at the recollection.

While Kim’s abilities surprised everyone, including herself, the connection to Claude Monet was not pure coincidence. Even before she began painting herself, Kim felt a deep attraction to and connection with the work of the French impressionist master. “You know when you see something beautiful and it brings tears to your eyes or gives you goosebumps? That’s not your rational mind, it’s your soul talking,” she says. “I’ve always been very in tune with my soul, and since I was a child, Claude Monet is the only painter who has ever made me cry in a museum. I’ve been to museums all over the world, and Monet is the only artist who has that effect on me.”

“I think it’s the energy in the brushstrokes, the colors when you look at a Monet very closely, it's magical. This is funny because Monet was a very angry painter, by the way. He had a huge temper and yet he was able to paint such beauty.”

Given Kim’s unconventional background, it is no surprise that she found such a connection with the French impressionists. Impressionism as an artistic practice came about in the 1870s, and at the time was quite radical. Dissatisfied with the art establishment’s focus on religious and literary subject matter and their highly posed treatment of subjects, artists such as Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre Renoir, and more set out to chart a new way, one that captured the fleeting, unstructured nature of light and color. The first impressionist exhibit opened in Paris in 1874 and was greeted with disapproval and even mockery by the art world.

Still, the impressionists got the final word, creating a radical new artistic practice that remains hugely popular, and went on to inspire later artistic movements. “Even the post-impressionist artists like Joan Mitchell, a lot of her work took inspiration from Monet,” Kim says. “It’s more abstract, but the colors are there, and the big, broad brushstrokes are a continuation of the legacy of impressionism.”

Like all of Kim’s artistic ventures, her decision to create original artwork for The Secret Garden Art Novel was a spiritual one. “I read The Secret Garden in school as a child and I was obsessed with the movie, I saw it multiple times. Even when I was doing event planning, I often used The Secret Garden as inspiration for weddings, so it’s been a part of my life for a long time. When Bond & Grace wrote to me, I knew it was meant to be,” she says.

“I’ve always been blown away by the idea of taking something almost dead and nurturing it back to life. I loved the companionship of the novel, the idea that you cannot do exceptional things by yourself and that you will always be more successful when surrounded by people who help you grow. To me, that is what The Secret Garden is all about, love and companionship.”

Kim’s artwork, which so heavily features flowers and the shifting dynamics of light and color, was a perfect fit for bringing to life Frances Hodgson Burnett’s magical story. “I especially wanted to paint that final scene where the garden is completed, and that became Garden in Bloom,” Kim says.

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While nothing captures the splendor of the garden at the height of its beauty, Kim was committed to capturing the whole process of growth. For example, her Artwork, Dreaming of Green shows the garden in the early stages of growth. “In Dreaming of Green, the seed has been planted, but it hasn’t bloomed yet. This piece was interesting because I have always loved the concept of monochrome but I had never applied it. It’s actually a very difficult skill to paint with only one color in different shades. It was a fun challenge to experiment with the degrees of color,” Kim says.

As viewers, we see this transition pay off in works like It Starts With One Single Seed. “In that piece, the paint is very thick. I wanted to show that there is an accumulation of love and nurturing and sun and water, and at some point, the seed explodes. That is what that piece is all about. An explosion of potential and love.”

One might think that as an artist who primarily paints the natural world, Kim’s environment would have a profound impact on her work, and yet she finds the opposite to be true. With such strong internal emotions guiding her work, she can paint her impressionist landscapes anywhere, from Florida to London. “My best work always comes from being recharged internally,” she says. “It’s not necessarily inspired by the nature around me as much as what is inside me. I can be anywhere in the world and if I’m feeling emotionally charged I can pour it out on the canvas.”

“I never set out to be an impressionist painter or a contemporary impressionist,” Kim says. “I started painting because my soul wanted to and it just so happened that impressionism captured that. I go with the flow of what is inside of me. I don’t follow guidelines, and I think impressionism does the same thing.”

We are so honored to have Kim’s stunning Artwork Garden in Bloom adorning the cover of our new edition of The Secret Garden Art Novel. Her entire collection is available for purchase, both the original Art and as Prints on the Bond & Grace website.