Orlando Museum of Art : 2025 Florida Prize in Contemporary Art
Image ©Macbeth Studio
Image ©Macbeth Studio
Troy Simmons is a Miami-based sculptor and multimedia artist who has been active in the city's art community for nearly two decades. He was originally raised between the urban landscape of Houston and his grandfather's farmhouse in East Texas. The "retreat," which the patriarch had built with his own hands, and that Simmons recalls had "dirt floors in some areas," is where he began exploring creative making, spending hours carving pieces of wood-particularly the hardy Berchemia Scandens vine. This experience instilled in him an appreciation for both the rugged ingenuity of handmade environments and the silent resilience of natural ecosystems. This duality between the built and the organic is at the core of his artistic practice.
Simmons's early exposure to biology through his mother, a nurse, sparked a fascination with the hidden world of microorganisms. Later, as a student of environmental sciences and architectural technologies, he developed a keen interest in unseen systems and structures. These scientific disciplines started to inform his art practice and, exploring new ways to build form and material, he began designing pieces that looked like what he saw in microscopes. His stark black Durchbruch Hybrid Series-German for "breakthrough"-includes shape-shifting organic membranes like that of Spore and Pansy, which fuse structural precision with the unpredictable and malleable force of organic forms.
Deeply influenced by the austere geometry of Brutalism, Simmons's process-driven practice begins with methodical planning-sketches, technical drawings, and 3D modeling-but the work ultimately surrenders to the unpredictability and vulnerability of the materials. The artist's tools: hammers, levels, chisels, upholstery tools, and even laser cutters, and his choice of industrial materials: concrete, aluminum, resin, auto paint, and reclaimed construction elements, are drawn more from a job site than a traditional studio, which attests to the artist's profound engagement with the physicality of his materials. Found concrete slabs are rebuilt and reinforced; new ones are poured, cured, then subjected to intentional acts of destruction: dropped, fractured, or chiseled to reveal layers beneath the surface. This methodology echoes the palimpsest of urban landscapes-where decay, erosion, and reinvention coexist-and speaks to the interplay between control and chaos, construction and destruction. Simmons frequently repurposes materials salvaged from demolition sites, viewing these materials as artifacts imbued with memory and history. "It has been through something," he notes, suggesting that the wear and weathering of these materials enhances their expressive potential. "Concrete is one of the most abundant things produced by humans" says Simmons, "there is so much of it, it has become the evidence of the presence of humans on Earth."
Many of the works included in the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, feature stark geometry and tactile surface treatments. Colorful pieces such as Pearl and R311.4, from the Perception Series, examine concrete as both skin and shell-bearing the imprint of those past lives while concealing vibrant interiors. The interplay between the raw materiality of concrete and the burst of color hidden within recalls the contrast between the harshness of Brutalist architecture and the polished warmth of domestic interiors. Relocating to Miami in 2008 marked a turning point in Simmons's visual language. He describes experiencing a "cultural splash"-a vivid collision of new histories, communities, and colors, that began to infiltrate his palette. As the city continues to gentrify and reshape its skyline, Simmons documents its disappearing structures-like vernacular buildings in the historically Black neighborhood of Overtown through photography, video, and 3D modeling. These ephemeral records are then transformed into sculptural monuments-homages to spaces once teeming with life, now vanishing under redevelopment.
Rather than imposing fixed meanings, Simmons allows each work to grow out of specific memories, places, and experiences-sometimes as simple as a plant twisting through pavement or as grand as a concrete monument rising from the earth. In so doing, he captures the complexity of contemporary environments-how we build, destroy, remember, and reclaim. Through processes of layering, eroding, and reconstructing, he invites us to consider what lies beneath the surface, both materially and metaphorically; to meditate on memory, resilience, and the enduring imprint of place.
Curatorial Statement By Coralie Claeysen-Gleyzon. The James Cottrell & Joseph Lovett Chief Curator at the Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL.
Simmons's early exposure to biology through his mother, a nurse, sparked a fascination with the hidden world of microorganisms. Later, as a student of environmental sciences and architectural technologies, he developed a keen interest in unseen systems and structures. These scientific disciplines started to inform his art practice and, exploring new ways to build form and material, he began designing pieces that looked like what he saw in microscopes. His stark black Durchbruch Hybrid Series-German for "breakthrough"-includes shape-shifting organic membranes like that of Spore and Pansy, which fuse structural precision with the unpredictable and malleable force of organic forms.
Deeply influenced by the austere geometry of Brutalism, Simmons's process-driven practice begins with methodical planning-sketches, technical drawings, and 3D modeling-but the work ultimately surrenders to the unpredictability and vulnerability of the materials. The artist's tools: hammers, levels, chisels, upholstery tools, and even laser cutters, and his choice of industrial materials: concrete, aluminum, resin, auto paint, and reclaimed construction elements, are drawn more from a job site than a traditional studio, which attests to the artist's profound engagement with the physicality of his materials. Found concrete slabs are rebuilt and reinforced; new ones are poured, cured, then subjected to intentional acts of destruction: dropped, fractured, or chiseled to reveal layers beneath the surface. This methodology echoes the palimpsest of urban landscapes-where decay, erosion, and reinvention coexist-and speaks to the interplay between control and chaos, construction and destruction. Simmons frequently repurposes materials salvaged from demolition sites, viewing these materials as artifacts imbued with memory and history. "It has been through something," he notes, suggesting that the wear and weathering of these materials enhances their expressive potential. "Concrete is one of the most abundant things produced by humans" says Simmons, "there is so much of it, it has become the evidence of the presence of humans on Earth."
Many of the works included in the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, feature stark geometry and tactile surface treatments. Colorful pieces such as Pearl and R311.4, from the Perception Series, examine concrete as both skin and shell-bearing the imprint of those past lives while concealing vibrant interiors. The interplay between the raw materiality of concrete and the burst of color hidden within recalls the contrast between the harshness of Brutalist architecture and the polished warmth of domestic interiors. Relocating to Miami in 2008 marked a turning point in Simmons's visual language. He describes experiencing a "cultural splash"-a vivid collision of new histories, communities, and colors, that began to infiltrate his palette. As the city continues to gentrify and reshape its skyline, Simmons documents its disappearing structures-like vernacular buildings in the historically Black neighborhood of Overtown through photography, video, and 3D modeling. These ephemeral records are then transformed into sculptural monuments-homages to spaces once teeming with life, now vanishing under redevelopment.
Rather than imposing fixed meanings, Simmons allows each work to grow out of specific memories, places, and experiences-sometimes as simple as a plant twisting through pavement or as grand as a concrete monument rising from the earth. In so doing, he captures the complexity of contemporary environments-how we build, destroy, remember, and reclaim. Through processes of layering, eroding, and reconstructing, he invites us to consider what lies beneath the surface, both materially and metaphorically; to meditate on memory, resilience, and the enduring imprint of place.
Curatorial Statement By Coralie Claeysen-Gleyzon. The James Cottrell & Joseph Lovett Chief Curator at the Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL.