Portrait of Creativity and Family Ties: Kimberly Violette Petty

Basic Information

Names, Identity, and Art

Kimberly Violette Petty is best recognized by the luminous moniker she uses in public and on social platforms: Annakim (often styled AnnaKim) Violette. The name fits—half dream, half signature. As an artist, she moves between imagery and costume, sculpture and spectacle, turning daily life into a color-saturated collage. Her feed—part sketchbook, part stage—shows a visual vocabulary full of pattern, whimsy, and an unabashed love for bold self-expression. Los Angeles has been her creative orbit, a city that rewards reinvention and rewards an eye for the offbeat.

The Petty surname is famous for songs etched into American memory, yet Kimberly’s art stakes out its own territory. There’s a sense of performance in the stillness of her photos, a theatrical spark in fabric, makeup, and pose. She has appeared in fashion-forward artist profiles and style features, but the through line is simpler: a maker’s appetite for play.

Family Roots: Music, Film, and a Shared Story

Kimberly is the younger daughter of Tom Petty and his first wife, Jane Benyo. Her sister Adria, born in 1974, is a filmmaker and creative director with a sophisticated visual sensibility—so the family tree runs on creativity. Tom Petty remarried in 2001 to Dana York, deepening the blended family with stepson Dylan. In 2013, the next generation arrived when Adria welcomed her daughter Everly; Kimberly is the doting aunt.

Grief and remembrance became part of the family narrative in 2017. After Tom’s passing in October that year, Kimberly shared heartfelt tributes online—notes and images that resonated with fans who were looking for light in a very public loss. Those posts captured the way a family grieves in full view: intimate, artistic, and real.

Timeline of Public Milestones

Art in the Public Eye, Life Behind the Curtain

To the public, Kimberly is a burst of color at the edge of a classic rock photograph: talented, expressive, and unafraid to transform. She’s shown an affinity for wearable art and performance styling—garments as sculpture, makeup as mood board. Her posts often read like postcards from an inner world, alternating between intimacy and spectacle, a diary told in textures.

Yet she maintains a measured boundary between her private life and public persona. Outside of specific family moments and creative glimpses, she keeps the narrative spare. No exhaustive résumés, no bullet-pointed CVs—only the art and the occasional appearance at family-centered projects and events.

A Family Working in Harmony (Even After Discord)

In 2019, a well-publicized disagreement over aspects of Tom Petty’s catalog and archival decisions pushed the family into legal territory. Kimberly and Adria sought a say in how their father’s work would be cared for and shared. The year ended on a constructive note, with a settlement and a new, unified structure to manage releases and long-term projects. Since then, the family has appeared aligned in stewarding Tom’s recordings, visuals, and related undertakings—work that blends memory with meticulous curation.

The Sister Thread: Kimberly and Adria

Every family has its duet. For the Petty sisters, the harmony blends cinema and studio, camera and costume. Adria’s professional life in film and creative direction complements Kimberly’s visual, performative sensibilities. In public moments since 2017, the two have often stood shoulder-to-shoulder, representing both personal remembrance and shared artistic values. Where one sketches, the other edits; where one builds imagery, the other frames it. The effect is a sibling collaboration—sometimes explicit, sometimes ambient—shaped by a lifetime of parallel creativity.

At a Glance: Family Members

Themes: Memory, Making, and the Shape of a Name

Names carry stories. Annakim—a name Kimberly uses widely—has a painterly cadence, a made-for-the-stage flourish. It mirrors the way she treats objects and outfits as components of an ever-evolving set. She seems to build meaning from pattern and color, then release it into the world as though letting a kite find its wind. When the family’s history returns in anniversaries and reissues, she contributes not as a historian but as an artist, offering images and signals that say: this is how it felt, this is how it still feels.

FAQ

What name does she use publicly?

She most often uses Annakim (or AnnaKim) Violette Petty in public and on social platforms.

What does Kimberly Violette Petty do?

She is an artist whose work and public persona span visual, fashion, and performative expression.

Where is she based?

She is widely described as Los Angeles–based.

How is she related to Tom Petty?

She is Tom Petty’s younger daughter, born to Tom and his first wife, Jane Benyo.

Who is her sister?

Her older sister is Adria Petty, a director and creative professional.

Does she have children?

Publicly, she is known as an aunt to Adria’s daughter Everly; no other information is broadly disclosed.

Was she involved in estate matters after Tom Petty’s passing?

Yes, in 2019 she and her sister took legal steps that concluded in a settlement and a unified management structure for future releases.

What is Tom Petty Legacy, LLC?

It’s the joint entity announced in late 2019 to coordinate releases and projects related to Tom Petty’s work.

What is her Instagram handle?

She uses @annakimwildflower.

What is her birth year?

It is publicly cited as early 1980s, commonly around 1982.