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Jeremy Simonson
July 2021 - Featured Artist - Jeremy Simonson
Underwater - Summer 2020.
I love to explore different
ways of looking at everyday things using natural elements like reflections,
light and refraction. I have a passion for landscape and water and showing how
colorful, artistic and abstract even the simplest thing can be when you use the
light naturally. One of my favorite subjects for this is water. Water is such a
beautiful element when interacting with light and movement. Natural reflections
of lakes, rivers and streams offer such fascinating frames, showing movement, a
representation of light, its counterpart, giving back. Giving away so much but
never telling the truth.
With water, I photograph exactly
what I see and do not use manipulation to create or layer the image - just a
little extra saturation and contrast to bring out the colors.
For several years I have
been taking water portraits of my family at our cabin on Strawberry Lake. At the time I was concerned about protecting
our water and wanted to do a series of images that explored my relationship to
this natural resource. Of course there is no other subject closer to me than family
and my love of nature and the memories made at our cabin in Minnesota. My family would become my subject, surrounded
by water, staring directly into the camera surrounded by this precious resource.
Adding importance to the water and subject. Deepening my relationship with both
family and this resource I wanted to protect.
But, after the pandemic hit, this project took another turn.
I moved the subject
underwater. Water symbolizing my experience.
Water can create such fascinating frames that I thought it needed to
take center stage and envelop the subject.
Elements like reflection, light and refraction painting over the subject.
I don’t know about you, but
I felt isolated and underwater. We all
experienced this time through our own lens. Water and light became my
paintbrush to explore my own personal struggle of this turbulent time. Reaction,
Isolation, Hope, Creation, Struggle. This is how I experienced it.
The rest I leave to you and
your imagination.
Artist Statement
I live, work and play around the transformative nature of water. Growing up in Fargo Moorhead of the Red River Valley, water always demanded attention. It was a lead character in all our lives, both life giving and volatile. Life giving by providing food and water to nourish the land and body, but also volatile with it powerful currents and devastating floods in the spring.
I have always lived near water, currently in Park Rapids, MN with the headwaters of the Mississippi, Fishhook River in my backyard, Big Man Trap Lake while at work and a family cabin on Strawberry Lake near the White Earth Reservation where I observe its beauty first hand throughout the seasons. Observing water in its purest form, its moods, its color, with light sparkling on it, objects floating in it, reflections upon it and people immersed within it. Water is irresistible as it gives an endless array of resource and inspiration. I wish to create interesting, peaceful images to express the feelings of serenity and solace that I find when I am by the water.
Arist Bio
Jeremy is an actor, photographer and artist from
the Fargo – Moorhead area where he studied theater arts at MSUM and Purdue
University. He discovered his lifelong love
of photography at North High School and as a student of the arts at the
Creative Art Studio in Fargo, ND where he learned the basics of analog
photography, video and a variety of other visual art disciplines. After several
years of working as an actor, Jeremy rediscovered his passion for documenting the
world while working and living in Chicago, Illinois, exploring street and
lifestyle photography.
Armed with a Vivitar point and shoot camera, loaded with
Fuji or Kodak 800 film, he proceeded to document his life in Chicago. More recently after moving from Minneapolis to
Park Rapids in 2012, he has been exploring people and the landscape through
digital photography. Without the
distractions of the City, Jeremy has been able to concentrate on a steady
practice of technique, discovery and artistic expression in documenting the
world around him. A lifelong practice of discovery and learning.
