Today we’d like to introduce you to Carol Simon. She and her team share her story with us below.
Please kick things off for us with some background on the story.
Carol Simon is a native Houstonian and self-taught expressionist artist. She has been creating art as a hobby in different forms throughout her life. In 2011, she started taking painting classes and found the immediate happiness that abstract expressionism invoked in her. She realized that being an artist was her calling and she has made it her full-time career ever since, has a studio space at The Silos on Sawyer, where you can find her, most days creating a new abstract painting or an environmental sculpture out of up-cycled materials.
Simon considers herself a multi-media artist and has a signature of using vibrant colors, repetitive shapes and art marks in all of her various creations. She likes to experiment with different types of mediums and substrates, all giving a slightly different effect to the same style and composition. Her works often reflect life experiences and personal journeys. She uses intense and vivid colors in all her art with the intention of making art that transforms the space into a happy and positive place. She is inspired and influenced by the artist, Dale Chihuly, as evidenced by the shapes and colors she uses in many of her paintings and three- dimensional environmental sculptures.
After taking a mixed media class, Simon discovered her passion for environmental art and using up-cycled materials into her works. Her first pieces included up-cycling buttons and different used trinkets to embellish half mannequins. Her most ambitious project came to her after she watched a video from photographer, Benjamin Von Wong, showing Wong photographing a mermaid on top of 10,000 water bottles to spread the message of the challenging topic of plastic pollution. The video made Simon realize her next environmental art piece should be created out of plastic bottles. She got busy collecting plastic bottles and created a chandelier from water bottles shaped into flowers and swirls that she made available for several exhibitions. In 2016, Simon decided she wanted to be crazy ambitious and make a large-scale plastic bottle sculpture with the community working with her, making plastic bottles fun and a way to up-cycle. Within a month, she had partnered with the First Ward Civic Council to cover a 150-foot fence on Houston Avenue using plastic water bottles to beautify the neighborhood and educate and bring awareness of plastic pollution to thousands of Houstonians. Over the course of 18 months, the art installation/fence was complete with the support from The First Ward, individuals, businesses, Keep Houston Beautiful, Park events and Community groups that helped collect, paint and install over 10,000 plastic bottles for the project.
When Simon is not in her studio, she is viewing art, traveling or spending time with her family and three dogs.
Carol, can you give our readers some background on your art?
I am a multimedia abstract artist known for using vibrant colors and signature repetitive art marks that come alive. I believe my art will transform any space into a happy and positive place. I paint using alcohol inks, acrylic paint, and oil pastels on different substrates, including plexiglas, aluminum, wood, and clayboard which all give different effects to the painting.
As an artist, making abstract expressionism is about the journey of bringing positivity, happiness, and fun to my day. It’s a way to express my inner self, curiosity for learning by creating and expressing my feelings on the canvas and doing what I love.
I embrace each canvas starting with whatever color palette speaks to me that day. I love to be playful and open up to new possibilities and embracing the unpredictable and inviting the serendipitous occurrence that the final piece will become. I let go and use my intuition to choose which marks and strokes to make in response to my mood and feelings at that moment. Most of my paintings go through stages of evolvement, constantly re-evaluating until I feel the piece is complete. The inks on Plexiglas are done in a reverse painting technique and are transparent, so it is a mystery when I see the finished piece complete as the light shines on it.
I like to bring my life experiences and personal journeys to each piece of work. I use organic shapes, bright, intense and vivid colors in my artwork with the intention of invoking a happy and joyful response by the viewer and making the world a more colorful place.
What responsibility, if any, do you think artists have to use their art to help alleviate problems faced by others? Has your art been affected by issues you’ve concerned about?
I make art for the viewer to escape the world issues and find their happy place.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
I have a studio space,207, at the Silos at Sawyer where I exhibit and sell and my work directly to the public, I open my studio each Second Saturday and Third Saturday of the month from Noon-5pm.
In 2018, I lead the formation of a group of 20 artists at the Silos, called Houston Art Connective to market together and have additional open studio to the public on Third Saturdays that are called Connect with Art Saturdays. We also have quarterly open studio lunchtime event for interior designers, art consultants, and influencers. Additionally, I have exhibitions at various spaces in Houston, Texas.
I also have had exhibitions at various spaces in the Houston area. In May-June of 2018, I had a Solo exhibition at m-architects and currently have worked at Circa Real-estate until the end of December. In July 2019 I will be having an exhibition at Urban Eats on Washington. I also have my work regularly on exhibition in the hallways at The Silos on Sawyer.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1502 Sawyer, studio 207, Houston, Texas, 77007
- Website: www.carolsimonstudio.com
- Phone: 713-857-5121
- Email: carol@carolsimonstudio.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/cfsimon01
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/carolsimonstudio
Image Credit:
Martin Holmes
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