Into The New Sea Nomad, 2009 - Xaviera Simmons

Xaviera Simmons is an artist, a musician, and a historian. Working in diverse media such as photography, sculpture, performance, audio, and video, Simmons—by creating narratives that speak to the artist's personal history as an African-American female—is able to explore themes of race, folklore, and Americana.

A descendant, in part, of an art historical lineage that includes Claude Calhoun and Cindy Sherman, Simmons often inserts herself as subject in her work. Decked out in costumes that reference the attire of slaves on plantations, desperate housewives in kitchens, and vaudeville performers donning blackface, Simmons deposits herself in desolate, isolated landscapes. The resulting pieces, which are both highly personal and politically charged, generate questions about the identity of both African Americans and females as they have been visually depicted in history.

Simmons is a native New Yorker who was educated at both Bard College and the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She has been the subject of solo exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX; SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY; and, most recently, at the Greater New York show at MoMA PS1 in 2010.Read Less