Jeffrey Simmons | watercolors 2000 - present

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TRANSIT IV, 2010
Watercolor on paper, in six parts
15.25 x 41.75 inches

Detail of TRANSIT IV, 2010

TRANSIT III, 2010
Watercolor on paper, in five parts
15.25 x 53.5 inches

Detail of TRANSIT III, 2010

TRANSIT II, 2010
Watercolor on paper, in four parts
11.5 x 36.75 inches


Detail of TRANSIT II, 2010

SIFT, 2007
Watercolor on paper
14 x 13.5 inches
$1,600 framed

LARGER CHORUS II (Blue, Red), 2004 Watercolor on paper, 16.5 x 16.5 inches $1,400 framed	LARGER CHORUS II DETAIL, 2004

LARGER CHORUS IV (Green), 2004
Watercolor on paper, 16.5 x 16.5 inches
$1,400 framed

In 2000, in response to a request for a works on paper exhibit, Simmons created a new body of work featuring reductive imagery realized using a carefully controlled layering technique. This departure allowed him to explore his continued interest in color in a different manner: rather than juxtaposing opaque paints, he created his color effects by building up many different layers of transparent pigment. The technique of layering transparent color has informed his subsequent work in all media. Simmons has continued to investigate the watercolor medium alongside his other current work.

LARGER CHORUS VI (Pale Blue, Orange), 2004
Watercolor on paper, 16.5 x 16.5 inches
$1,200

LARGER CHORUS VII (Red, Blue), 2004
Watercolor on paper, 16.5 x 16.5 inches
$1,200

LARGER CHORUS VIII (Ultramarine), 2004
Watercolor on paper, 16.5 x 16.5 inches
$1,200

LARGER CHORUS IX (Violet), 2004
Watercolor on paper, 16.5 x 16.5 inches
$1,200

AURORA (multi-color ring), 2002
Watercolor on paper, 15.5 x 14 inches
$1,400 framed

photo courtesy of robert wade

"Simmons' paintings...are the precisionist path. He's working with finely controlled geometric figures, mostly concentric circles. He's still spinning them, discharging the loaded brush on the turning paper, but now with the accuracy and focus of a diamond cutter.

Simmons is working in watercolor, and his palette is as finely controlled as his hand. He calibrates each stripe, for width, saturation and for color. The narrow bands of color are so regular that they look dimensional, like layers of colored paper, sliced through at an angle. He moves from groups of bright stripes through areas of musty, smoggy stripes, from small variations of color to extreme difference in color and in value. It's easy to read concentric circles as targets.

The unsettling outcome of all this fine muscle control and fine mental control is that many of Simmons' works read as the impossibly tidy leftovers of some violent action, as if the paper had been drilled through by a bullet. They're small, tense and stunning."
- Victoria Josslin, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 2000

AMANITA (3 red circles), 2000
Watercolor on paper 11.5 x 11.25 inches
$1,200 framed

DARK CLUSTER (circle mandala), 2000
Watercolor on paper, 11.25 x 11.25 inches
$1,300 framed

MARIGOLD (yellow ring), 2000
Watercolor on paper, 11.5 x 11.25 inches
$1,200 framed

NEW HARMONY (chevron), 2000
Watercolor on paper, 11.5 x 11 inches
$1,200 framed

OPTIMISTIC (2 rings blue/red), 2000
Watercolor on paper, 11 x 9 inches
$1,200 framed

SIGNAL (ring), 2000
Watercolor on paper, 11.25 x 11.25 inches
$1,200 framed

SWARD (stripes), 2000
Watercolor on paper, 11.5 x 11.5 inches
$1,050

THOROUGHFARE, 2000
Watercolor on paper, 11.5 x 11.5 inches
$1,050

UNTITLED MULTI (3 columns rings), 2000
Watercolor on paper, 10 x 8.5 inches
$1,300 framed