Xaviera Simmons is an American contemporary artist. She works in photography, performance, painting, video, sound art, sculpture, and installation. Considered a public intellectual, she is known for works which span formal artistic practices as well as conceptual and political landscapes.
According to Simmons gallerist, "she defines her studio practice, which is rooted in an ongoing investigation of experience, memory, abstraction, present and future histories-specifically shifting notions surrounding landscape-as cyclical rather than linear. In other words, Simmons is committed equally to the examination of different artistic modes and processes; for example, she may dedicate part of a year to photography, another part to performance, and other parts to installation, video, and sound works-keeping her practice in constant and consistent rotation, shift, and engagement."
Simmons was raised in New York City to a practicing Buddhist parent in an extremely creative and matriarchal atmosphere. Simmons has mentioned many times in lectures the unique mixture of being raised by Buddhists while also attending various denominations of the Black Church. Simmons traveled frequently to Bangor, Maine as a child and this mixture of New York City and rural Maine have formed many of the ideas inside of her work. Simmons has stated in her lectures and writings that she is a descendant of Black American enslaved persons, European colonizers and Indigenous persons through the institution of chattel slavery on both sides of her family's lineage.
Simmons received her BFA from Bard College in 2004, studying under An-My Lê, Larry Fink, Mitch Epstein, Lucy Sante and Stephen Shore. She completed the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program in Studio Art in 2005, while simultaneously completing a two-year actor-training conservatory with The Maggie Flanigan Studio.
Simmons has held teaching positions at Harvard University, Yale University and Columbia University. She was awarded the 2008 David C. Driskell Prize from the High Museum of Art.
Simmons has exhibited works nationally and internationally. Her work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), MoMA PS1 (Long Island City, New York), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Studio Museum in Harlem (New York), Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the Pérez Art Museum Miami, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. In 2017, Simmons had a solo exhibition of her work at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
The 2008 Public Art Fund's program for emerging artists commissioned Simmons to produce a three-week project. The project, Bronx as Studio, used the streets of the Bronx as a space for sidewalk games, classic photographic portraiture, and performance art. Passersby were encouraged to participate in various activities including hopscotch, soapbox speaking, chess, and Double Dutch. Simmons provided props and background elements, against which all of the publics' spontaneous activities were recorded. Color portraits were sent directly back to participants, as a way of completing the process of active, creative participation.
In 2010 The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University commissioned Simmons to produce a full length record album inspired by the landscape and histories of North Carolina. Simmons produced a set of photographic images and sent them to musician friends who subsequently wrote music to her images. From this work Simmons album "Thundersnow Road" was released in 2010 via Merge Records.
Simmons initiated an ongoing project entitled Reading Work which engaged hundreds of individuals and collectives from across the United States in compensated reading and art-making. The project was funded by the Ford Foundation's Art for Justice grant. Simmons has stated that this project is non-linear and ongoing.
© 2026. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Xaviera Simmons or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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| Ms. Xaviera Simmons |
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| Landscape (Home) 2006 |
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| Landscape (2 Women) 2007 |
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| Landscape, 2007 |
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| One Day and Back Then, 2007 |
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| Day, 2008 |
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| Denver, 2008 |
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| 3, 2009 |
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| Into the New Sea (Nomad) 2009 |
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| Warm Leatherette, 2009 |
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| Around The Y, 2010 |
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| Harvest, 2010 |
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| Untitled, 2010 |
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| Urban (NC) 2010 |
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| Index One, Composition One, 2011 |
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| On Sculpture #1, 2011 |
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| Index Three, Composition Three, 2012 |
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| Untitled (Yellow #2) 2015 |
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| One (Blue Frost) 2016 |
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| Overlay (Image Nine) 2017 |
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| Overlay (Image One) 2017 |
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| Sundown (Number Nine) 2018 |
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| Sundown (Number One) 2018 |
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| Elegant, 2019 |
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| The Whole United States is Southern, 2019 |
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| Installation view, New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, 2020 |
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| The structure the labor the foundation the escape the pause, 2020 |
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| Self-Portrait of a Nomad, 2021 |
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| A Warm Wash of Blue, 2023 |
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