Kimes divides his time between Chautauqua, NY, Italy and Washington, DC.

His work has been presented in more than 150 exhibitions internationally including the Corcoran Gallery of American Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, National Academy of Sciences, Baltimore Museum of Art, Rocca Paolina (Perugia), Living Art (Milan), America Haus (Munich), Casa di Cultura (Villahermosa, Mexico), ExMoenia in (Todi, Italy), Lohin Geduld Gallery, National Academy of Design, Ammo Artists Space, Stephan Gang, Claudia Carr, Kouros, Prince Street, and Arsenal Galleries, Lucky Strike, Ammo Artists Space (all NYC), Washington Project for the Arts, National Academy of Sciences, Katzen Museum of Art, International Art and Artists Hillyer Art Space, Elizabeth Robert's Gallery, Constitution Hall (all Washington, DC), and many others nationally and internationally.

A 2001 finalist to be Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts Kimes was also a recipient of a Medici Medals at the 2001 and 2003 Florence International Biennale of Contemporary Art, to which he had been invited by critic/curator Barbara Rose. Additionally he has received awards to live and work on the island of Kauai (2002), a grant to spend a year painting near Todi, Italy (1994-95); a US Department of the Interior award to be artist in residence at Yellowstone (1993); a grant from the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes to work in southern Mexico (1993); Eisenhower Foundation and Chautauqua Institution support to be a U.S. Visual Arts representative to the 1986 Jurmala Cultural Exchange in the Soviet Union; and studio residency awards from the Millay Foundation (1985) the Assensore di Cultura in Corciano, Italy (1999 through 2003) and Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy (2009).

For 24 years he has been Artistic Director in the Visual Arts at the Chautauqua Institution (VACI) in New York State. For the past 21 years he has been Professor of Studio Art at American University in Washington, DC where, as Department Chair for 11 years (1990-2001), he was instrumental in expanding the national reputation of that university's MFA program and led the Department during a campaign which resulted in the construction of the Katzen Center for the Arts. Previously he was Program Director at the Studio School in New York City, where he also taught painting and drawing for 10 years. He has been a guest artist at the International School of Art (Italy), The American University of Rome, Universidad Juarez Autonoma (Mexico), Riga Academy of Art (Latvia), Harvard, Dartmouth, Bard, Syracuse, Alfred, Tyler School of Art, Cleveland Institute of Art, Georgetown, UC Davis, Cleveland Institute of Art, Parsons, Maryland College of Art, Cooper Union, & others.

MFA, City University of New York, Brooklyn College (1980); Post baccalaureate studies: New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture (1977-79) and Univ. of Pittsburgh (1975-77); BA Westminster College (1975)