Jeremy Simmons

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Artist Statement

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When I stand in front of a subject with my measuring tools and a stick of conté, I am engaged in careful, objective measurement — mapping out space and form is the hardest, most demanding part of my process. My sole focus is the rigorous act of truly seeing my subject. But I don't do this only to copy what's in front of me; I do it because discipline buys freedom. Once the structure is locked down, the work erupts into what Giorgione called poesia — it becomes expressive, spiritual, poetic. The rigid measurements guide the energetic gestures of my hand, so the whole journey is visible at once: the intense physical search alongside the emotional response.

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My work moves along a Janus-faced duality — two contrasting sides held at once — shifting between day and night. By day, observation captures the direct physical reality of my environment — patterned foliage, twisting shadows and branches, the dramatic energy of Louisiana vegetation. As daylight fades, the mood shifts. In my nocturnes, I use observed light to emphasize atmosphere and emotion over overt narrative, in the spirit of Giorgione's poesia. I reject flat black in favor of a spectral palette, using the vibrancy of color to give even darkness a charged, living quality. Night or day, I sometimes hold multiple viewpoints at once, in the tradition of Cézanne's shifting perspectives — nature becomes a living presence, its sounds and moods taking on visual form.

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Indoors, that same tension turns psychological. I use foreshortening and theatrical lighting in my studio interiors to reveal the raw, sometimes unsettling interior world of my subjects — a cluttered worktable, a self-portrait caught in raking window light, a figure on the floor, each becoming a charged psychological landscape. To introduce drama and a sense of dynamic time, I often build picture-in-picture elements, in the tradition of Duccio — nesting scenes within scenes, like stories within stories — inviting the viewer to move through the room searching for what connects.

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Whether the medium is oil, aux trois crayons (three-chalk drawing), or charcoal, I return to the same question every time I start measuring a subject: what is actually here, if I look long enough to see it? Observation is only the starting line — I am searching for the moment an ordinary place or object becomes heavy with meaning. Painting the places I know deeply, from my youth on a Kansas cattle farm to the live oaks and quiet night streets of Central Louisiana, is a way of documenting the passage of time. I believe the profound happens in everyday settings. There is a quiet vanitas beneath the work — a subtle reminder that life is fleeting — a stillness that looks like peace at first, and slowly reveals that everything is temporary.

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Artist Biography

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Jeremy Simmons is a studio artist and educator with over two decades of college-level teaching experience, based in Alexandria, Louisiana. Born in the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas, Simmons grew up on a rural cattle farm, developing an early, profound connection to the landscape, the kinetic energy of animals, and the natural world. Inspired by his grandparents' careers as teachers, he pursued a path that bridged studio practice and education, earning a Bachelor of Science in Education in Art Education from Emporia State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Indiana University Bloomington.

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Today, his studio practice is rooted in rigorous perceptual observation, spanning oil painting, charcoal and aux trois crayons drawing, printmaking, and ceramics. Balancing meticulous formal measurement with expressive, painterly gesture, Simmons captures both his local environment and his deeply personal interior spaces — from the sprawling live oaks and nocturnal plein air streetscapes of Central Louisiana to psychologically charged, cluttered studio interiors. His work is frequently exhibited in regional and national juried exhibitions, including the Tom Peyton Memorial Arts Festival and the First Street Gallery National Juried Exhibition in New York City.