I've been involved with many many mixed showings over the years, about 25 come to mind, and another 13 as a solo exhibitor.

Six during during recent years that have been the most successful, not only for the financial return but for the personal achievement and the fact that they were successful by my own standards, that they played a role in a presentation that made a comment that was important.

My intent in all the showings was to , in some way speak of the earth, and human behavior, our lifestyles, our comforts and our invisible foot print that is not only unseen, but hardly even thought about.

Brian Simmonds

Elements Art Gallery - October 6-21. 2012.

Exploring The Language. Works for the last decade.

A collective of all the thoughts and notions of the last decade in a diverse mix of media, from Charcoal and Pastel drawings, to Oil on canvas paintings.

Elements Art Gallery
July 28. 2011.

The " HOME TIME " pictures were to remind us of the everyday ordinariness that excludes nature almost completely.

Our comforts and lifestyles are first and absolutely essential.

Welcome to the “great indoors”. Here the interior world that shelters and comforts’ us is brought into a sharper focus, revealing the way objects claim ‘a place in their owners affections’.

Revealing the way that we view the world around us, ‘in passing moments and brief glimpses’.

Through charcoal and pastel works on paper Brian Simmonds explores the family home. His search results in a treasure trove of perspective, sensations of recall and discovery, and the enjoyment of thought stimulated by experience.

Brian’s artistic exploration does not stop at the back door. This exhibition follows the artist as he takes a step further into the garden.

His entrance into the tactile realm of nature results in cascading floral scenes, elements of light, colour, and nature, dancing in oil paint. The message is clear and simple, take time to smell life’s floral beauties and appreciate the wonderment of the everyday. It’s Home Time.

Elements Art Gallery - 2010

The "SKIN DEEP" exhibition represented the take-over of the natural world, and hopefully showed that beauty can be found almost anywhere, man made or not, nature can beautify almost anything by the way that light behaves.

Rain-soaked pavements reflecting the images and colours of the man made world are pretty indeed, but they don't really exist, they're transient, and on the surface only.

Burswood June 2009

The "EARTH" paintings were hopefully more than pretty pictures, it was intended that they also be attention getters, to make people aware of nature as a subject, not simply a landscape.

The notion that excluded the sky and the horizon was an attempt at drawing peoples attention to the closeness of nature, the part of the earth that we're actually standing on, and able to reach and touch, and be embraced by, is at risk and won't last forever .

Following on from his highly successful solo exhibition “Dear Earth….” at Elements new Dalkeith location in July, “Light and Life” was a further body of work created in response to the themes explored in Dear Earth.”

In all 20 works were hung at Elements off-site location, in the lobby of the Burswood Entertainment Complex, where the exhibition caught the attention of an international buyer who immediately purchased the entire show for his private collection.

“Artists only ever dream of this sort of thing happening” Simmonds responded when he learned of the news.

Gallery manager Sue Nash believes that the overwhelming response to Brian’s works is due to his skill and choice of subject matter. “People are reconnecting more with nature now and Brian’s beautifully articulated works celebrate the natural world.

I believe he’s really touching a nerve with his veneration for the Earth and the viewer can appreciate that his respect is genuine and they want to be a part of that.”

Ellements Art Gallery
July 11

Elements Art Gallery is pleased to announce that Brian Simmonds solo exhibition entitled “Dear Earth” will feature at the official launch of the Elements Dalkeith space in July.

Through a series of lush canvases depicting forest floors contrasted with paintings of suburban gardens, the viewer is presented with images of the earth’s complexion in its many forms.

 Brian believes that there are essentially two forms of nature; the leaves, sticks, stones and sandy patches of the natural world and the ‘nature’ found in the man-made garden; an attempt to control nature and recreate it to suit our sensibilities.

“Whilst gardening as an art form is an inherent aspect of human nature,” Brian explains, “and there can be something worthy of recording in whichever garden I look, I find it even more compelling as a painter, to examine the forest floor.

There are so many accidental compositions just waiting to be discovered that art is literally under your feet, so to speak.”

Brian feels that his work has more resonance now than even as recently as ten years ago. As the realization grows that we all need to care for the earth, he feels that his work is a timely reminder that we ignore nature at our peril and need to appreciate it just the way that it is.