Artist Statement

A visual bridge connecting nature and humanity these collaged paintings are my celebration of life. The mystery and freedom of art allows me to penetrate directly through vision, my relationship to people, culture and environment in forms abstract and mythic.

“Along with providing a venue for local creative talent through Santa Rosa Art Center, Simmon Factor is also a prolific artist. His paintings have a collage quality, with 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 finished compositions that have a fresh, unexpected, and uplifting character.”

– Bruce Elliott

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.