GILA SIMONA BAND

My work tends to be 'organic' or loose and figurative.  I suppose it's in reaction to the rigid training I received in Hard Edge Painting at Art School.  At that time I was sold on painters such as Malevich, Stella and Agam.  It was the early '70s and that was the route I took.

As I go through life, struggle and play with its diversities and paradox, I come to realise as in my work that all and none needs to be taken seriously.  

I don't believe I produce Great Art; I have no ambition to, nor is it my role.  My art simply depends on my response to the day, the week or a process that preoccupies me at the time.

There are so many concepts and messages that one could communicate visually.  I'm not too concerned with that. For me the communication lies with my surface, materials and medium.  I choose them or them me.  It's what happens in-between where the singing starts.

An extract from an art critic of an exhibition held at Lutge Gallery Cape Town:

"Simons Band is an up and coming artist who works in a variety of mediums ranging from drawing, painting and etching to ceramic sculpture.  She often uses the Nude Form as the basis for her work.  In her current work one sees the versatile way in which she mixes her media to create fantasy and dream-like situations.

There are black angels set in Baroque landscapes and boudoirs.  Upside down figures fly through pastoral environment or pose unselfconsciously on stage in provocative underwear.

Through her free and expressive line and colour, her art gives way to the humour, seriousness, confidence and vulnerability that one may experience in life."

Simons Band has held exhibitions nationally and has both public and private collections in France, Germany and Israel.