Serial Photographer

Ever since I can remember I have approached reality through multiple perspectives. It has always been difficult for me to choose a single image to capture the essence of a subject – whether a tree, a dancer, a city, the ocean. What better way to get close to something than to move across the details of its surface, clicking selectively, collecting intimate visual data? Each sequence represents the original movement of the camera. As in film, the sequences follow the rhythm of discovery, connecting discontinuous images through the movements of the eye behind the camera. The sequences – every image is different – can then be accumulated and composed to create a larger statement. And soon, within this dynamic repetition, rhythms and patterns start to emerge. The ensuing grid structure imposes a kind of order on reality’s many chaotic forms, altering the work’s perception whether seen from a distance, or from up close. Sequential photography allows me to work on a large scale and to combine painterly elements with a sculptural format. The compositions become interactive, rhythmic and meditative, providing a glimpse of the infinite within the physical world. Observe the writing of water on sand, the pattern of bark on a tree, a building’s glass façade, the shimmer of cloth, the veins in a leaf. Experience a different perception of time, not presented in a seamless flow, but as time broken down into moments, captured one after the other.

Art in public spaces

I am interested in developing works of art for public spaces, on a scale that interacts convincingly with public architecture, and which will be enjoyed by a large and diverse public. In my work I like to transgress predictable perceptions of space and time: to widen horizons by installing indoor skies and vertical walls of grass, to have people walk through curtains of fire or car parts. By making work that can be touched and sometimes actually walked through, I challenge the conventional notion of art as something to be kept separate from the body. I think of my work as serious, certainly, but at the same time as both playful and poetic. I am used to working within formal constraints. For example, in the commissions for the Kunsthaus Graz, Thierry Mugler, and American Express, I selected and interpreted visual elements that evoked each particular theme and then worked to reveal their abstraction, their rhythm, their edge. Thanks to contemporary digital printing technology, my work can be mounted or printed directly on a variety of materials, including fabric, vinyl, glass, metal, PVC.

Wearable Art

“One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.” Oscar Wilde

Printing my work directly onto fabric offers great creative possibilities. For the last ten years I have been experimenting with printing on a number of different fabrics to create wearable objects, using designs derived from my original compositions. Though I continue to experiment, my favorite product to date is the silk scarf: a wrap-around composition printed directly on silk crêpe (crêpe de soie). The inks penetrate this highly resistant, easily washable silk permanently, making the scarf durable in time. The printed silk softens with wear. The scarves are signed and dated, and are printed in limited editions of 150 for each design.

Some of the Parts

Thoughts on the Works of Simo Neri – Richard Ingersoll, April, 2005 – […] The sum of the parts is  in effect only some of the parts. Yet this method evokes a greater whole that can be identified as the  resonance between the viewer and the phenomenon. As research these works push provocatively on the “doors of perception“. They are precise and objective portrayals of fragments of reality that deny the possibility of seeing objects in space in their three-dimensional integrity. Photography has been used to countermine its own determinedly scopic nature to see things from a different, multiple point of view. Each shot provides a piece of space, but taken together they do not lead to a literal reconstruction of a setting. At the same time that space has been negated, the more ambitious works that hang free-standing propose a basic contradiction: they are installed as spatial definers, shaping the interior environment.

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Biography

Born in Italy, Simo Neri has lived in California, Paris, and New York, and has recently re-established her studio in San Francisco. Influenced by these different cultures, as well as by studies in art and philosophy, she has been combining photographic and painting techniques since 1978. Neri’s installations of large “photo curtains”, “photo kimonos”, and “photo falls”, are rhythmic and meditative in nature. Her recent work explores new printing techniques on silk, linen, and cotton canvas. Simo Neri’s work has been exhibited and collected in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Wear the city
Feel the city
Be the city!

 SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS

_THE DREAM SCREEN: THREE PROTOTYPES BY SIMO NERI (2021), 3-Door Gallery, San Francisco, California

_URBAN RHYTHMS (2019), Avenue 12 Gallery, San Francisco, California

_WEARING CITIES at NYCxDESIGN (2014), Industry City, NY

_SEQUENTIAL BEAUTY (2009), lot84, Mt. Kisco, New York

_BHU (2007), MyOwnGallery, Milano

_RECENT WORKS (2006-2007), US Eastern District Courthouse, Brooklyn, New York

_SOME OF THE PARTS (2005), Kiesendahl+Calhoun Contemporary Art, Beacon, New York

_ENTRE CIEL ET TERRE (2004), Ministère des Finances, de l’Economie et de l’Industrie, Paris

_KITCHEN WORKS (2003), Bulthaup Bastille, Paris

_INAUGURATION (2003), law offices Eversheds Frere Cholmeley, Paris

_RID’EAU (2002), FIAP Jean Monnet, Paris

_WINTER COLLECTION (2002), Thierry Mugler headquarters, Paris

_BETWEEN THE LINES (2001), Yume Gallery, Tokyo

_VIRTUAL WOOD (2001), Belcher Gallery, San Francisco

_PASSPORT (2001), Fort Mason, San Francisco; Barker Hangar, Los Angeles

_RECENT WORKS (2000), The Presidio, San Francisco

_THE FACTORY AND ITS DOUBLE (1980), Magazzini del Sale, Biennale di Venezia

 

SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS

_FROM DISCO DAYS TO THE TECH CRAZE (2024), Jewett Gallery, SF Public Library Main Branch, San Francisco, California

_MAKING ART IN A CHANGING WORLD (2024), Belvedere Tiburon Library Art Gallery, Tiburon, California

_MIKIHASI 7th, (2024), Bluestream Gallery, San Francisco, California

_PATCHWORK, (2024), Slate Contemporary Off-Site, Oakland, California

_THE PLAYFUL SPIRIT, (2024), Museum of Northern California Art (MONCA), Chico, California

_URBAN TIDES, (2024), Voss Gallery, San Francisco, California

_EVOKE, (2024), Metal Haus Gallery, San Francisco, California

_BAY AREA ARTS AND CRAFTS EXHIBITION, (2024), Sausalito Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California

_WOMEN RISING, (2024), The Drawing Room Gallery and Annex, San Francisco, California

_BLACK & WHITE national juried exhibition, (2023), ARC Gallery, San Francisco, California

_SFOS EXHIBITION ART LAUNCH, (2023), SOMARTS Gallery, San Francisco, California

_ANNUAL BAY AREA ARTISTS' CHOICE, (2023), San Francisco Women Artists Gallery, San Francisco, California

_REFUSES OF THE BAY, (2023), Metal Haus Gallery, San Francisco, California

_SALON DES REFUSES, (2023), Four Chicken Gallery, San Francisco, California

_OUR SHELTERING SKY, an installation (2023), The Drawing Room Annex, San Francisco, California

_ADAPTATIONS: EAT ME, DRINK ME, an installation (2022), The Drawing Room Annex, San Francisco, California

_UP IN ARMS and LAND (2022), The Drawing Room Annex, San Francisco, California

_CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Image and Text in Public: the photographic art of Simo Neri and Malcolm Ryder (2022), The Writer's Grotto, San Francisco, California

_RIPPLES (2021), UC Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, California

_THE BIG SHOW (2021), JCO's ArtHaus Gallery, Los Gatos, California

_SF WIDE OPEN SHOWCASE (2021), Somarts Gallery, San Francisco, California

_Artspan Wide Open Studios (2021), San Francisco, California

_MISSION VIRTUAL OPEN STUDIOS (2021), San Francisco, California

_DE YOUNG OPEN (On the Edge) (2020), de Young Museum, San Francisco, California

_FALL VIRTUAL OPEN STUDIOS (2020), Artspan, San Francisco, California

_FALL OPEN STUDIOS (2019), Artspan, San Francisco, California

_SPRING OPEN STUDIOS (2019), Mission Artists United, San Francisco, California

_FALL OPEN STUDIOS (2018), Artspan, San Francisco, California

_"HE LIKED THE ACT OF READING, THE MAGIC OF TURNING SCRATCHES ON A PAGE INTO WORDS INSIDE HIS HEAD" (2015), Say What Contemporary Art, Tannersville, NY

_SMALLS (2015), Atelier du Fond de la Cour, Paris

_ART CONTEMPORAIN POUR M.R.S. (2014), La galerie du jour Agnès b., Paris

_"WHEN I PAINT A STILL LIFE, I WANT IT TO BE ANYTHING BUT STILL" (2014), Say What Contemporary Art, Tannersville, NY

_"WE LIVE IN A RAINBOW OF CHAOS" (2013), Say What Contemporary Art, Tannersville, NY

_MSTADT (2005), Kunsthaus Graz, Austria

_EX-PEAU (2004), Espace Beaurepaire, Paris

_ENTRE 2 (2004), Alliance Française de Paris

_LIFT TO WONDERLAND (2003), Resodiversion, Paris

_CIEL D’INTERIEUR (2002), Hotel Dieu, Brie-Compte-Robert

_GCC /IGS 5 (2000), World Trade Center, Osaka

_GCC /IGS 4 (1999), Museo de Arte Moderna, Toluca, Mexico

_TRANSPOSITIONS (1994), FIAP Jean Monnet, Paris

_GROUP SHOW (1999) Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco

_ARTE E NUOVE TECNOLOGIE (1984), Electrografica, Pavia

_ENVIRONMENT (1980) Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco

_ELECTROWORKS (1980) Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design, New York ;Canadian Center of Photography and Film ; International Museum of Photography, Rochester, NY

COMMISSIONS

FIAP Jean Monnet, Thierry Mugler, American Express, Macy’s, SO-AN, Bulthaup, Holland + Holland, O’Design, RATP, Kunsthaus Graz, New York School of Visual Arts