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Adrienne Simmons is a multi-disciplinary artist currently based in Houston, TX. She explores ideas of cartography and memory with found materials to untangle the relationship between people and their environments. Drawn to real and imagined landscapes, she uses printmaking, cyanotype, found objects, textiles, and abstract imagery in an attempt to understand how memories are embedded into spaces and places. She received her MFA from the University of Houston. Her work has been collected by UTMB and MD Anderson, and she has shown at the Houston Center for Photography, Lawndale Art Center, the Print Museum, and the Blaffer Art Museum.
Do you ever feel a distinct type of pain when reflecting on a place in your past? The Welsh have a word for this feeling called hiraeth, which translates to “distance pain.” It’s not quite a nostalgic yearning, but the true pain of loving a place. Having moved frequently around the US, I often experience this sense of place-pain.
My work responds to the landscapes I visit. I’m drawn to the way the land shapes our personal histories and memories. I collect the fragments of our lives—domestic textiles, collected water, crushed seashells, clumps of earth, and vines to make homemade charcoal. These found materials are collaged with satellite imagery, cyanotype, and acrylic mediums in an intuitive and alchemical practice. This multimedia exploration allows me to establish a sense of place, map ideas of collective memory, and attempt to embed the landscape into the surface of my work. Ultimately, the connection made with the land and the resulting work reconciles my hiraeth.
image credit: KGMA at UH