Color Coordinated Interiors, 1982–83
In Color Coordinated Interiors, 1982–83, Simmons broke with traditional photographic paper sizes for the first time and used medium- and large-scale formats. This body of work investigates the formal characteristics of color, shape, and light by returning to the artist’s now familiar motif of staged plastic figurines. Monochromatic red, green, yellow, and blue plastic “teenette” dolls made in Japan are set against two-dimensional backdrops projected from slides. Experimenting in the days before digital photography and Photoshop, Simmons shot the backgrounds with Kodachrome film and then used the slides to create rear-screen projections (a technique of cinema). She would then stage the dolls, shoot the set-ups with color film, and wait to get the images back from the printer to see the outcomes. “It wasn’t until I started editing that I could see that some figures in front of the rear-screen projections worked beautifully and others failed miserably. What I mean by ‘worked’ is that every once in a while, the figures were totally integrated into the backgrounds and looked like they were actually standing in the rooms.”