Kirsten Rae Simonsen

ARTIST STATEMENT

My paintings of Victorian taxidermied animals in fanciful environments reflect my love of the space created by the fairy tales of my childhood: where animals talk and magic or evil lurks around the corner. Birthday cakes and other sweet treats are a recurring theme as I explore the borders of childhood innocence, and the ways in which childhood trauma can enact its subtle revenge. The work conveys a sentimental sweetness, which is also cloying and unsettling. The animals’ expressions and the situations depicted in my work evoke an ominous feeling lurking beneath the surface.

The atmospheres in my work encompass both attraction and disgust. Often my work depicts placid animals suspended in artificial, human-made environments full of pastels, neon colors, and glittery surfaces. I use “unnatural” and sometimes fugitive colors along with more “permanent” pigments, exploring the tension between the “real” and the artificial.he “real” and the artificial.

All of my work explores how humans romanticize the natural world in our culture, and how that romanticizing can be artificial, inauthentic, and even sentimental and saccharine. Humans idealize, distance, and control wildness in many ways: with stuffed cuddly toys, and...

MFA, Studio Art, University of Chicago, 2003

Certificate, Painting, Art Institute Indonesia Bali, Indonesia, 1999

MA, Studio Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1997