Bridget Simons

Bridget Simons is an artist whose work explores both emotional and physical liminal spaces. With a background in fine arts, her oil paintings and current creative work in watercolor on paper and oil on board reflect a deep interest in these transitional areas. The sea, central to Simons' paintings, symbolizes the unknown and serves as a metaphor for the ongoing refugee crisis. Her work references the 'in-between' status of refugees and migrants, embodying the concept of liminality.

By overlaying references from various eras and cultures, she highlights the historical and ongoing nature of migration, and the difficulties associated with navigation, both literal and metaphorical.

Simons uses a range of obscure or little-known maps in her paintings, such as star charts, ancient Islamic maps, and stick charts from the Marshall Islands, to emphasize the challenges of migration. Her intimate-scaled paintings invite private engagement, using abstraction, aerial and eye-level perspectives, and the square format to evoke stability amidst turmoil.

Her work is a commentary on the disorienting nature of liminal spaces, suggesting that these spaces, though frightening, often herald positive growth.