BIO
Troy Simmons (b. 1975, TX) is a Miami-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice
encompasses sculpture, photography, and 3D visualized worlds. He explores color, texture, and
structure to develop a unique visual language, fueled by curiosity that questions
identity and habitat. Raised between the urban landscape of Houston and his grandfather’s
hand-built farmhouse in East Texas, Simmons grew up fascinated by natural forms and the structure
of simple dwellings. A self-taught artist since his early teens, Simmons’ creative inclinations
were complemented by his studies of Environmental Science at Sam Houston State University and
Architectural Technology at Oklahoma State University. His research on organic growth, animal
nest-making and the vernacular architecture of ancient cultures allowed him to recognize functional
design as a survival instinct across species, eventually leading to an artistic investigation of
identity as the difference between exterior and interior space.
Simmons’ work has appeared at Art Basel Miami Beach, VOLTA Basel Switzerland, Art Paris, Boca Raton
Museum of Art, Cornell Art Museum and a group show during the 57th Annual Venice Biennale. The
recipient of an Oolite Ellies Creator Award, Simmons has completed residencies at Artpace San
Antonio and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. His work is held in private and corporate collections
including Charles Schwab's corporate headquarters in Austin Texas. To date, Simmons has completed
two large scale permanent commissions for public work – a building facade in Miami’s Wynwood
neighborhood commissioned by Goldman Global Development, and an architectural integrated sculpture
titled "Janus Portal" commissioned by Bombardier Inc. at the Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport
inspired by his 2018 sculpture, Vortex.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work begins with a question that I’ve carried since childhood: what’s behind, beneath or below the surface of things? What’s inside and how does it work?
I grew up between two worlds — the dense urban grid of Houston and my grandfather's hand-built farmhouse in rural East Texas. Both taught me the same thing. Construction practices leave distinct clues about the people who built or inhabit the structure and the conditions they were surviving. That instinct has never left me.
I studied environmental science and architectural technology, because I needed frameworks for what I was experiencing. How organisms build. How habitats form. How growth finds its logic from pressure, constraint, and whatever materials are available.
I kept returning to the conversations between building materials and biological systems. Concrete cracking along the same pathways that root systems exploit. Cellular structures and load-bearing walls following the identical logic of pressure and distribution. Mycorrhizal networks threading through soil the way rebar threads through a foundation. These systems indirectly speak the same language.
My sculptures enter that conversation. I collect construction debris and material the world has abandoned — and reconstruct them using the growth logic of organisms combined with the structural balance of architecture. The prior life of the material stays visible. The new form it takes is driven by environmental pressures and my intervention.
I am interested in what persists beneath the surface. In what grows from what has been broken. In the invisible systems that produce everything we see and experience daily.
EDUCATION
Oklahoma State University- Architecture Technology 2005
Sam Houston State University- Environmental Science 1999-2002
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 SPORE, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami FL
2023 TEXTURES OF HUMANITY, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami FL
2018 VOLTA NEW YORK , NY, J
2016 REVISITING BRUTALISM, Artium Art, Miami FL
2015 DURCHBRUCH, JanKossen Contemporary, Chelsea NY
2014 GENESIS, Context / Art Miami, Miami FL
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
FLORIDA PRIZE IN CONTEMPORARY ART | ORLANDO MUSEUM OF ART
INTERVALS - City of Coral Gables + Art Basel Miami Beach
ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH, Fredric Snitzer Gallery
2023
ART BASEL | MIAMI BEACH, Fredric Snitzer Gallery
2022
ART BASEL | MIAMI BEACH, Fredric Snitzer Gallery
2019
ART PARIS, Paris France
VOLTA BASEL, Basel Switzerland
2018
MONOCHROME, Jankossen Contemporary NY, Chelsea, NY
Haitian Heritage Museum, Miami FL
Cornell Art Museum: Looking Back, Delray Beach FL
2017
Nuovi Orizzonti- BIENNALE ARTE 2017 - 57th Venice Biennale - Jankossen Contemporary, Venice, Italy
Troy Simmons (b. 1975, TX) is a Miami-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice
encompasses sculpture, photography, and 3D visualized worlds. He explores color, texture, and
structure to develop a unique visual language, fueled by curiosity that questions
identity and habitat. Raised between the urban landscape of Houston and his grandfather’s
hand-built farmhouse in East Texas, Simmons grew up fascinated by natural forms and the structure
of simple dwellings. A self-taught artist since his early teens, Simmons’ creative inclinations
were complemented by his studies of Environmental Science at Sam Houston State University and
Architectural Technology at Oklahoma State University. His research on organic growth, animal
nest-making and the vernacular architecture of ancient cultures allowed him to recognize functional
design as a survival instinct across species, eventually leading to an artistic investigation of
identity as the difference between exterior and interior space.
Simmons’ work has appeared at Art Basel Miami Beach, VOLTA Basel Switzerland, Art Paris, Boca Raton
Museum of Art, Cornell Art Museum and a group show during the 57th Annual Venice Biennale. The
recipient of an Oolite Ellies Creator Award, Simmons has completed residencies at Artpace San
Antonio and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. His work is held in private and corporate collections
including Charles Schwab's corporate headquarters in Austin Texas. To date, Simmons has completed
two large scale permanent commissions for public work – a building facade in Miami’s Wynwood
neighborhood commissioned by Goldman Global Development, and an architectural integrated sculpture
titled "Janus Portal" commissioned by Bombardier Inc. at the Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport
inspired by his 2018 sculpture, Vortex.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work begins with a question that I’ve carried since childhood: what’s behind, beneath or below the surface of things? What’s inside and how does it work?
I grew up between two worlds — the dense urban grid of Houston and my grandfather's hand-built farmhouse in rural East Texas. Both taught me the same thing. Construction practices leave distinct clues about the people who built or inhabit the structure and the conditions they were surviving. That instinct has never left me.
I studied environmental science and architectural technology, because I needed frameworks for what I was experiencing. How organisms build. How habitats form. How growth finds its logic from pressure, constraint, and whatever materials are available.
I kept returning to the conversations between building materials and biological systems. Concrete cracking along the same pathways that root systems exploit. Cellular structures and load-bearing walls following the identical logic of pressure and distribution. Mycorrhizal networks threading through soil the way rebar threads through a foundation. These systems indirectly speak the same language.
My sculptures enter that conversation. I collect construction debris and material the world has abandoned — and reconstruct them using the growth logic of organisms combined with the structural balance of architecture. The prior life of the material stays visible. The new form it takes is driven by environmental pressures and my intervention.
I am interested in what persists beneath the surface. In what grows from what has been broken. In the invisible systems that produce everything we see and experience daily.
EDUCATION
Oklahoma State University- Architecture Technology 2005
Sam Houston State University- Environmental Science 1999-2002
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 SPORE, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami FL
2023 TEXTURES OF HUMANITY, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami FL
2018 VOLTA NEW YORK , NY, J
2016 REVISITING BRUTALISM, Artium Art, Miami FL
2015 DURCHBRUCH, JanKossen Contemporary, Chelsea NY
2014 GENESIS, Context / Art Miami, Miami FL
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
FLORIDA PRIZE IN CONTEMPORARY ART | ORLANDO MUSEUM OF ART
INTERVALS - City of Coral Gables + Art Basel Miami Beach
ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH, Fredric Snitzer Gallery
2023
ART BASEL | MIAMI BEACH, Fredric Snitzer Gallery
2022
ART BASEL | MIAMI BEACH, Fredric Snitzer Gallery
2019
ART PARIS, Paris France
VOLTA BASEL, Basel Switzerland
2018
MONOCHROME, Jankossen Contemporary NY, Chelsea, NY
Haitian Heritage Museum, Miami FL
Cornell Art Museum: Looking Back, Delray Beach FL
2017
Nuovi Orizzonti- BIENNALE ARTE 2017 - 57th Venice Biennale - Jankossen Contemporary, Venice, Italy
DOWNLOAD FULL CV
| troy_simmons_cv_2026.pdf |