Bio

Simone is a Jamaican-Canadian award-winning artist living in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Simone was the National Winner in 2020 for the Bank of Montreal’s annual 1st! Art Competition. Simone graduated with honors from the Alberta University of the Arts in May 2020. Other awards in 2020 include the Alberta University of the Arts’ Board of Governors’ Graduating Student Award for Fibre, the Illingworth Kerr Gallery Award for Academic Achievement, and the Surface Design Association’s Outstanding Student Award. Recently, Simone has been featured in Canada's House & Home Magazine, CBC Arts, "What're You At?" with Tom Power, CBCq, CBC Radio One, Booooooom, Colossal, Galleries West, Instagram, and much more. Simone has a theatre background in acting, writing, and producing. She was a founding member of the first Afrocentric theatre company in Western Canada, the Ellipsis Tree Collective. Simone was President of the Students’ Association at the Alberta University of the Arts for the 2018-19 school year. She was recognized by the Alberta Government in receiving the Laurence Decore Award for Student Leadership in 2019.

Statement

Simone is a textile artist who creates hand-tufted textiles of colorful portraiture celebrating Black womanhood. She uses a tool called a tufting gun and integrates it with a punch needle to create large tufted artworks.

Textiles engage upon a search for belonging: studying the Black female body, personal identity, and a connection to Black history. Simone amplifies her journey of womanhood, revealing the force and vulnerability that lies within. She tufts narratives through cultural mythology, current iconography, and personal landscapes. A big source of inspiration for Simone is Art Nouveau, an era in which female portraiture was highlighted and exuded tremendous grace and femininity. Simone empowers narratives from Black womanhood in an effort to capture sensuality, mystery, vigor, and charm. With the use of vibrant color, Simone channels her Caribbean ancestry, creating a color-burst tapestry filled with storytelling and emotion. Repetitive ideologies of powerful creatures are embedded as talismans within Simone’s work: enhancing upon otherness and the Black body’s relation rooted in a kinship of power and survival.

Simone’s textiles aim to connect women and to stay engaged with the global diaspora of the Black community; creating from a craft that is rigorous and tactile. The outcome is a captivating work that illuminates a life rooted in both a rich history and a vibrant tomorrow.