Garric Simonsen
Garric is currently tattooing professionally at Turkey Tail Tattoo, Spokane, WA.
The artist does not use internet images for researching, whatsoever. Content is derived from hard research and imagination. GARRIC SIMONSEN apprenticed under Andi Demitri, and Zack Woods.
(B: 1975) a 4th-generation Washingtonian, artist, tattooist and musician. Work and projects have shown at Bellevue Arts Museum, Jundt Art Museum, Boston Center for the Arts, Platform Gallery (Seattle, WA), Darger HQ (Omaha, NB), Seattle University, Eastern Washington University, University of Wisconsin Madison, the 2010 Brucennial (NY, NY), Wheaton University (Norton, MA), Dog and Pony (Spokane) and Bradley University (Peoria, IL).
Other achievements include 2012 and 2014 nominations for Portland Art Museum’s Contemporary Northwest Art Awards, MFA Scholarship Award (WSU), Art Music Grant (WSU), JUNO Award (TESC), Mark Blakely Award (TESC). Currently tenured faculty at Spokane Falls Community College; holds an MFA from Washington State University and BA from The Evergreen State College (Olympia, WA).
Reviews and publications of Simonsen’s work are included in; The Stranger, Seattle Weekly and Art Collector Magazine. Simonsen has also guest written for Hyperallergic art blog in Brooklyn, NY. Projects have been funded and awarded grants from the Vermont Studio Center, Artist Trust (Seattle, WA) and The James and Janie Washington Foundation (Seattle, WA).
Curated by Vito Schnabel, Simonsen was included in the 2010 Brucennial, a large group show in lower Manhattan under the arts collective, The Bruce High Quality Foundation. Considered to be "the most important survey of contemporary art in the world ever, " the exhibition brought together 420 artists from 911 countries working in 666 discrete disciplines. A critical review of the exhibition appeared in a New York Times article by Holland Cotter. The exhibition included such names as; David Salle, Francesco Clemente, Donald Baechler, among others. Shortly following, Simonsen's work was chosen for an exhibition at Platform Gallery in Seattle, WA, curated by artist William Powhida. In 2014 Simonsen exhibited drawings for the Bellevue Arts Museum: BAM Biennial: Knock on Wood. These works responded to a large collection of his family's turn-of-the-century photographs of the Pacific Northwest's logging and railroad industries. A critical response to Simonsen's drawings were featured in the Seattle Weekly blog for a review of the Biennial by arts writer Brian Miller.
COLLECTORS SHORTLIST:
ROBERT YODER