AIH Studios’ latest featured artist in our ongoing Artists You Need to Know series is someone “trying to tell my own truth.” Laurie Simmons is ‘known for her close-up images of the world of dolls, Simmons has long used her lens to critique gender roles and idealized visions of American prosperity and domesticity. By making small objects the central focus of her works, Simmons manipulates our sense of scale and of what is important and worthy of artistic attention. In this way, Simmons makes the personal, the small, and the intimate, political objects, bringing a feminist message to her domestic scenes.” (Chandra Noyes, from Art & Object)
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Walking House (Color), 1989
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Lying House, c. 1990. From Lying Objects
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Lying Book, 1990, from Lying Objects
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Bending Globe 3 / 5, 1991
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Walking Cake II (Color), 1989
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Walking Gun, 1991
Laurie Simmons explores her very unique vision in a variety of media, focusing upon upon photography and fillm. ‘Known for her distinct visual style and staged domestic scenes using dolls and miniature objects, Simmons questions the veracity of photographic realism and the stereotypes of American culture.’ Many of her works are striking and stay with the viewer, whether her domestic ‘scenes’, her ‘portraits’ of dolls with haunting, inhuman eyes, or her very iconic Lying Objects or Walking Object series.
“I’m not interested in a visual Magical Realism. Given a chance, I’ll always go for accurate perspective and scale in the hopes that someone might believe the scene.” (from artnet) Her work has been exhibited, and is in the collection, of spaces that include The Jewish Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
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Long House (Den), 2004
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Long House (TV Room), 2004
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Long House (Red Bathroom), 2004
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Purple Hair / Purple Coat / Snow, 2014
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Yellow Hair / Red Coat / Snow / Selfie, 2014
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Orange Hair / Snow / Close Up, 2014
A sentiment of the uncanny and unsettling flows through Laurie Simmons’ work: and though often very different, her intent to fracture our expectations – whether in ‘realism’ or in a large societal dialogue – moves through all of her works.
Simmons is very erudite about her work and ideas: “My work isn’t specifically about my own story. Rather it’s kind of an idealized cultural memory of the position of women when I grew up.”
You can see more of her work at her site, where she offers many links out to critical writings about her practice. She is also on Instagram at @lauriesimmons (or follow this link).