Artist Statement
How does one contribute to the culture of our time? The visual arts are my favored path. By creating pictures beautiful and mythic I leave my mark, brighten and enliven our world.
They may be compared to jazz improvisations on a melody beginning with a composed structure inspired by my visual memory and with an improvised color scheme. There is an alchemical process at work here – shapes transform and grow, new colors demand to be added or overlaid. Most paintings have textures of torn or cut silk-screened mulberry papers spontaneously arranged over and under colors. These give them a tactile edge, a sharp unexpected flavor.
“Simmon Factor is a prolific artist. His paintings have evocative elements layered onto a loosely geometric natural setting. Beginning with a conceptual sketch and then gives his instincts full rein, allowing the expressive shapes, vivid colors and nuanced textures to assemble themselves organically into unexpected compositions that have a fresh uplifting character.”
– Bruce Elliott PhD
Art historian and author
Bio
Executive Director of Santa Rosa Arts Center
Artist, curator, entrepreneur, teacher
Art studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and BFA degree Northeastern Illinois University 1985.
- Since 1970, created innumerable paintings, collages and assemblages, prints, photographs and drawings, of which only a fraction can be represented within the limits of a website.
- 1980-1992 worked in graphic arts and design in Chicago and the West Coast.
- In 1993, he opened Village Art Supply in Santa Rosa, California, a resource to generations of professional artists, students and crafters.
- After selling the store in 2012, he opened Chroma Gallery in Santa Rosa’s SOFA Arts District.
- He is currently the Executive Director of the Santa Rosa Arts Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which he founded in 2017.