ABOUT

The Little Haiti Studio, 2026

Listening to the Forest

‍ My studio practice focuses on interventions in and with nature—these actions become my works.

I live on an acre of land just south of Miami, where I talk to the trees, bury my toes in the soil, and tuck small ornaments into organic crevices. These performative acts, designed with intention, easily become fluid, changing with our tropical winds.

While assembling tree branches, capturing a still image, attaching lace, or filming rolling ocean waves, I'm looking for the place where opposites sit together. One evening, at a stoplight off an expressway ramp, I watched as a lone rooster danced and strutted by. That scene became "Nightfall": constructed of buttons, fabric cutouts, drawing, and oil paint, resulting in a tapestry of the Miami skyline, the rooster, and a shadowy figure falling from the clouds.

In the studio, while sawing, hammering, sewing, beading, or painting, a collected seed pod spills its seeds on the table next to a handful of discarded pink buttons. Eventually, they all get fixed to a length of hand-dyed, patterned silk, then stretched around a gold-leafed frame that sat forgotten in a corner for years. The memory of yesterday morning's birdsong becomes today's bluebirds nesting on a woman's hairdo, painted on a square of torn canvas and added to the mix. They are all strangers joined together in a new work—an assemblage, a song, or a poem.

My multidisciplinary practice is rooted in discovery through experience and presence. Looking at my work requires you not only to open your eyes, but to immerse your thoughts and feelings. Imagine a framed photograph of a body sleeping in the forest. It hangs on a wall across the room from a suspended, fuzzy, white cloud. There's a distance between them, but also a strange closeness—the closeness of our experiences, those places we've been that never left us, long after we've left them.

Simmons-Jiménez won, in 1992, one of the prizes of the XVIII Bienal Nacional de Artes Visuales with the first video-art installation ever realized in the Dominican Republic, "A couple of days in the life of Julie Ozama" (1992). . .  plays with her doubled alterity … and codifies a new vision of Nature’s performistic talents. Dr. Alanna Lockward “Towards a Utopian Archeology”

BIO

Alette Simmons-Jiménez (b. 1952, Madison, Wisconsin) received a BFA from Newcomb Memorial College of Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana (1975). The artist began her studio practice in the Dominican Republic and is now based in Miami, Florida

The artist has exhibited extensively in museums, galleries, and media festivals internationally and has collaborated with designers and architects to install large-scale commissions in public and private spaces.  Her latest solo exhibition was presented with site specific works for Oolite Arts Walgreens Windows Projects, Miami Beach (2024).

Other notable solo exhibits have been presented at the Miami International Airport Art in Public places Moving image Gallery (2023), Museum of Arts & Sciences, Daytona Beach (2022); The Miami Design District, Space S|223 with curator Tiffany Chestler (2020); Museum of Modern Art, Santo Domingo (1997); Palm Beach ICA Media Room, curator Michael Rush (2001); Inter-American Development Bank Washington D.C., curator Susana Leval (2000); Oolite Arts Walgreens Windows Projects, Miami Beach (2018); and the Frances Wolfson Gallery at Miami-Dade College (2001), among others.  Notable group shows have been at Centro León, Santiago, Dominican Republic (2024); 21C Hotel Museum, Louisville, KY (2015); US Dept. of State Art in Embassies Program Riyadh, Saudi Arabia & Tegucigalpa, Honduras (2015 & 1999); Boca Raton Museum of Art (2014); Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago, (2012); Appleton Museum, Ocala, FL (2010); Casa de la Cultura-Valencia, Spain (2010); MOCA N. Miami (2001); Lowe Museum (2000); Mobile Museum of Art (1999); Musée du Luxembourg, Paris (1989); and numerous others.

Simmons-Jiménez is a recipient of a Miami Individual Artist Grant (2024 & 2023), a prestigious Knight Arts Challenge Grant (2008), a Miami-Dade Tourism Development Grant (2008), a Miami-Dade Community Grant (2008), a Florida State Artists Enhancement Grant (2006), a Florida Fellowship Grant & Honorable Mention (1998 & 1995). The artist has been cited as the first to exhibit video installation art in the Dominican Republic, and received a 1st Prize in Video at the Dominican XVIII Biennial (1992). She is listed among creatives forging the South Florida art community in the publicans “Miami Contemporary Artists” and “100+ Degrees In The Shade: A Survey of South Florida Art”.

The artist received an Oolite Arts Home & Away Grant, and attended the artist residency program at MASS MoCA (2024).  She was invited and attended Résidence D'Artiste Ifitry, Essaouira, Morocco (2019), and was awarded a grant to a seminar/residency at Es Baluard Museum of Contemporary Art, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (2017).  

While the artist continues developing her practice she is also dedicated to community building. From 2004-2011, she founded/directed artist-run collective Artformz Alternative, exhibiting over 150 artists. Simmons-Jiménez also served on the BOD of ArtTable, Inc New York and developed a celebrated mentoring program One X One serving young women in the arts. She held positions of FL Chapter Chair and Programming Director (2013-2016).  Currently the artist hosts and produces Art & Company Podcast, (2018 - present) gaining an international audience, while promoting and documenting the burgeoning South Florida art scene.

Installing at The Museum of Arts & Sciences, Daytona Beach, FL 2022