Stacey Simmons

Stacey Simmons was born on the Caribbean island of Saba, in the Netherlands Antilles.

After completing visual arts examinations at CXC level, she travelled to the United States on a scholarship to pursue an education abroad. In 2006, she obtained a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, with a concentration in painting.

Although her medium of choice is oil paint, she also enjoys working in egg tempera and watercolor and is familiar with processes of ceramics and printmaking.

After teaching Fine Arts at the high school in Saba in 2007, she pursued a Masters degree in Art Education at Florida International University in Miami, Florida.

Simmons materializes and transforms imagery into a synthetic, mystical realm. The combination of vivid, arbitrary color, flat, graphic silhouettes, pattern, modeled forms and distinct flowing line come together to make up endless tropical fauna contrasted with imagery, indicative of an urban, consumerist, life. In these paintings, nature becomes invaded; organic forms emerge out of a fabricated world and are charged with a new energy. In her work, she seeks to explore the notion of beauty and aesthetics in our modern society.

The content of her work is the result of a personal reflection, from experiences and observations of places; cities versus islands, tradition versus popularity, and how cultures dictate value. There is not one single image in a painting that can convey the concept, but how they work together that tells the story. In the moments when the shift between representation and abstraction takes place, interesting, complex relationships are created and a new, enigmatic composition evolves.


Click on any thumbail below to see a bigger image.


Exhibits:

2009 Art Education Master's Class Exhibition, Borders Art Gallery, Miami, Florida

2008 Divergent Expressions, Group Exhibition, Student Gallery, Miami, Florida

2007 Transcendence, Solo Exhibition, Windwardside, Saba, Netherlands Antilles

2006 BFA Show, Covivant Gallery, Tampa, Florida

2006 Reconstruction: An Honors Painting & Drawing Student Collaboration, Oliver Gallery, Tampa, Florida

2006 30th Annual USF Juried Student Art Exhibition, Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida

2005 Solo Exhibition, The Gate House , Zions Hill, Saba, Netherlands Antilles

Featured in the 2007 issue of The Islands Dream Travel Road Book, St. Barths and The 2010 issue of Dutch Caribbean Art Diary, Curacao.

back to Arts and Crafts Home