In her career spanning more than four decades, Simmons has used the camera to explore psycho-social subtexts involving gender, social convention, identity and cultural aspiration, often by considering ways that objects are humanized and people—particularly women—are objectified. Simmons's striking uses of color, pattern and lighting are often cited as important factors in her work's articulation of cultural memory, emotion and interiority. Although traditional gender roles are a common theme in Simmons's pieces and her work is often discussed in the context of feminist critique, Simmons presents the lived experiences and collective cultural memory of women in a way that preserves complexity and agency.
Doll and dollhouse works (1976–98) In earlier work, Simmons staged tableaux with dolls, toys and props, using visual immersion into miniature spaces to create moments of dramatic potency. the latter works questioned the artificially contrived "slickness" Inspired by old dancing cigarette box commercials and
Rockettes-like chorus lines, Simmons's tongue-in-cheek, human-scaled "Walking and Lying Objects" (1987–91) featured human-object hybrids. "The Love Doll" series (2009–11) represented a turn from the retro or nostalgic, toward the contemporary, realistic and human-scaled. The large, color-saturated images portrayed thirty days in the "life" of a high-end, life-size sex doll from Japan. Set in a real domestic world (Simmons's home) that had a normalizing effect underplaying the sexual element, the series privileged the doll's emotional life as a kind of "Everygirl" The oversize "How We See" portraits (2015) depicted young women in yearbook-like poses against bright curtains, with radiant light catching strangely vacant eyes that were actually ''trompe l'oeil
illusions painted onto their closed eyelids (e.g., How We See/Tatiana (Pink)'', 2015). Reviewers described them as "equal parts alien and alluring … uncanny in their mystery" In the "Some New" photographs (2018), Simmons moved further toward direct portraiture, while still marshalling visible contrivances. The images included portraits of her children,
Lena Dunham and
Cyrus Dunham, as
Audrey Hepburn and
Rudolph Valentino, respectively.
Filmmaking and acting Simmons's first major film was
The Music of Regret (2006, MoMA;
Art21), a 45-minute, three-act musical weaving iconic elements of her photographic work, actors and puppets into humorous and poignant vignettes about choices made in friendship, love and work. The acts include a dark-wigged
Meryl Streep portraying a speed dater (and Simmons surrogate) being courted by male ventriloquist dummies and the
Alvin Ailey dancers embodying her "Walking Objects" female archetypes in a heartbreaking,
Chorus Line-like audition.
The New Yorker critic
Richard Brody deemed it "a frankly practical look at professionalism and its blurry borders." Simmons portrayed the protagonist, Ellie, a single, 60-something artist, who spends a month in a borrowed country house (Simmons's) to regenerate herself and her stalled art career. Its cast included actors
Blair Brown and
Parker Posey and Simmons's friend
Marilyn Minter.
Collaborative fashion and design projects In 2008, Simmons collaborated with the designer
Thakoon Panichgul on fabrics for his 2009 spring collection based on her "Walking & Lying Objects" series. The final pattern repeated an image of a blood-red rose over legs in repose. She collaborated with cosmetics entrepreneur
Poppy King on a limited-edition poppy red lipstick, "Pushing It," that was available in tandem with her museum retrospectives in 2018 and 2019. Simmons created the
Kaleidoscope House (2000–2) with architect Peter Wheelwright, an interactive, three-story modernist dollhouse sold in stores, which she later photographed. It employed colorful sliding transparent walls and miniature artwork and furniture by contemporary artists and designers. == Personal life ==