[1][2] Kim Charles Kay was born in Olympia, Washington, and raised in "tiny timber towns" in the Pacific Northwest.
Kay and artist Lisi Raskin initiated MOTORPARK, a mobile collaborative platform at the ICA Maine College of Art,[5] and held a discussion on the project at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City.
[6] Kay made costumes and set pieces for Jeanine Oleson's Hear, Here, an experimental opera that was presented at the New Museum in 2014.
[7][8] Kay's installation project, A Version of One Truth, was presented by the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in 2015, where she was an artist-in-residence.
[15][16][17] Critic Megan Bickel, in reviewing the exhibition, wrote that "Cat Mummies Came First grants observation of a lived experience as a juxtaposed historical and contemporaneous moment—one with remarkable affection for those of the present, past, and future.