Marc Simmons

Artist Statement

As an artist I am compelled by images of people… their face, their context, their vibration and anything else that alerts my senses to the point of wanting to paint them.
During my professional life of 40 years as an accountant, I struggled to live my life as an artist. There was a period between 2000 and 2014, when I was working and taking care of my wife who had MS and other issues. During that time, I continued to paint but did not show my work. In 2014 my wife passed and I retired. Since then, I have been able to paint full time and eventually began to show my work again.
My work as an artist has taken me in several different directions. I painted portraits of my family, friends and acquaintances, trying always to garner an essential element of their spirit. Several of my paintings depict the conflict between the world as the Artist, the Poet, and the accountant. More recently, I have been working with the technique, first thought best thought, making my approach to the canvas as an unknown.