Kim Matthews Wheaton lives and paints in the Columbia Plateau country of Eastern Washington. Although she grew up in San Francisco and got her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Berkeley, she feels completely at home, living in the vast expanses and arid climate of the Columbia Basin. The dramatic light changes constantly, and her palette changes with the seasons.

In spite of painting architectural subjects in gouache for many years, her move to the Northwest inspired her to return to oil paints and to explore the unknown territory of landscape. In doing so, she found her calling.