Michael Simms

Interrogating traditional representations of masculinity, Simms examines how the male body has often been depicted as strong, heroic, and dominant - reinforcing patriarchal ideals. Influenced by his training at the Julian Ashton Art School, he reflects on how these conventions intersect with queer art, questioning hypermasculinity as both a protective armour and a barrier to intimacy.

His series of intimately scaled landscape paintings were created during the artist's travels to the Broken Hill region. As a site that holds personal significance for him, the resulting artworks reflect both a sense of hereditary exploration and a subjective appreciation of the areas unique topography. Within his superbly crafted distillations of the regions haunting and cinematic vastness, Simms skilfully captures the essence of a fleeting moment. Sensitively observing the dramatic quality of light so unique to the Australian outback, these images are also infused with a psychological charge, blurring of the boundaries between reality and the dreamlike.

Portraiture plays a foundational role in Simms’ practice, portraying artists who create live experiences, in an ongoing project called ‘Stages’. Increasingly, he’s personally venturing further into the realm of performance, blending and bending genres to create a new kind of body-based poetics.

Simms’ most recent series, ‘Body Talk’, orbits the dynamics of embodied intelligence via deep considerations of performance, movement, and the body in space – and history. It builds on recent explorations of performance practices during residencies at Bundanon and Gang Gang and workshops at Critical Path where the artist engaged with choreographers and movement practitioners. “This changed the way I paint’”, he reflects, “generating images from a more physical and internal place”. Created through an experimental approach of automatism, the works investigate the kinaesthetic potential of the body and how this can shift, shatter and shape the image-making process. An increased awareness of how we move through space has enabled Simms to discover unexpected anatomical shapes and unconventional gestures that challenge historical narratives and traditional tropes of masculinity. “I'm curious about how the male body is so often depicted as being strong, heroic, dominant, fighting, in conflict...and what this unconsciously re-enforces about gender roles, the patriarchy and masculinity,” he explains.
'Excerpt from catalogue essay by Elli Walsh 2025