Lorraine Simms
Lorraine Simms’ practice is located in a form of contemporary interrogation and commentary upon nature. Animal forms have appeared in her paintings, drawings and sculptures for over twenty years. Her recent works explore our relationship to the natural world by highlighting the manner in which animals are represented within our society, over the long course of their depiction in still-life painting, as well as in terms of their posthumous collection and scientific understanding.
Her most recent body of work, Shadowland, was started and realized throughout and following her residency at the Museum of Natural History in New York, in the mammalogy department there. She employed the Museum’s collection of the bones and skins of endangered and extinct species to draw the projected shadows of these specimens. The resulting drawings, both accurately realized and manifestly abstracted at once, speak to the loss and empathy we experience, as she catalogues each individual both as such and as representative of their species.
Lorraine Simms has exhibited her work throughout Canada and the United States in a career spanning more than 30 years. Her paintings and drawings have been featured in institutional exhibitions in Canada and the United States, including the Canadian Museum of Nature (Ottawa, 2021-22), the Redpath Museum (Montreal, 2023), the Beaty Museum of Biodiversity (Vancouver, 2019) and the Beaverbrook Art Gallery (Fredericton, 2018). Her work has been the subject of numerous reviews, poetry, and a television documentary. Simms has participated in numerous residencies, including the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams (2017), and the American Museum of Natural History in New York (2018, 2019), where she was granted privileged access to their private collections in order to begin her Shadowland series. In 2023, she continued her research in the collections of the Canadian Museum of Nature and the Redpath Museum, both in Canada. Her work can be found in renowned corporate collections such as the Bank of Montreal, the National Bank of Canada and Loto-Québec, as well as in museum collections such as the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the Canadian Museum of Nature. Simms has an MFA from Concordia University.
-
Lorraine Simms: Shadowland at the Redpath Museum
October 10, 2023McBride Contemporain is pleased to share the upcoming exhibition by Lorraine Simms at the Redpath Museum as a part of her Shadowland series. Drawings from...Read more -
New publication by Lorraine Simms: Eidolons
April 15, 2023Lorraine Simms publishes Eidolons, following up on her eponymous exhibition presented at OBORO in November and December 2022. This richly illustrated 60-page bilingual publication includes...Read more -
Lorraine Simms: A solo show at OBORO, Montreal
November 5, 2022McBride Contemporain is delighted to share Lorraine Simms’ exhibition Eidolons, which is currently taking place at OBORO in Montréal until December 10.Read more -
Border Crossings highlights Lorraine Simms' latest body of work in their Spring 2022 issue
June 19, 2022McBride Contemporary is pleased to announce that a selection of Lorraine Simms' latest works, drawn from a comprehensive body of graphite drawings currently on view at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, has been published as part of a Portfolio in the latest issue of Border Crossings.Read more -
SHADOWLAND, from Lorraine Simms, reviewed in ESPACE Art actuel
May 4, 2022McBride Contemporary is proud to announce that Lorraine Simms' solo exhibition Shadowland, presented at the Canadian Museum of Nature (Ottawa), has been reviewed by Gabrielle...Read more -
Lorraine Simms: A solo exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa
February 1, 2022In a major solo exhibition presented at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Lorraine Simms presents a series of fifteen large-scale drawings. These works are the result of two research residencies at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The subject matter is the remains and bones of endangered or extinct animals.Read more