Simo Neri
Listen! 2020
Digital Giclee Prints on Stretched Canvas
35” x 35” – each panel
Artist Statement
2020 ushered in a pandemic and the accompanying social isolation. I felt compelled to react by bringing into focus first the relentless suffering inside covid ICUs, then the anti-racist messages from both street protests and voices from the past, and finally the plight of the unhoused. LISTEN! is a triptych inspired by the urgency of the recent protests against systemic racial injustice. In this critical time, I feel an overwhelming need to pay attention to the voices on the street as well as to those from the past. Words matter. Born in Italy, I have lived and worked in San Francisco, Paris, and New York. Influenced by these different cultures, as well as by studies in art and philosophy, I have been combining photographic and painting techniques since 1978. I have produced works, large and small, for both public and private spaces. Simo NERI / San Francisco, 2021