About Joan Fitzsimmons

I tend to work on several projects at once. I’ve examined the tenuous, ebbing boundaries between reality and perception. I’ve asked questions about human relationships, the nature of home, my relationship to nature, and the significance of the quotidian. The ordinary act of living is endlessly complex and uncertain. It is through the ordinary that, for me, the world resonates.

Joan Fitzsimmons is a practicing photographer who has explored varying iterations of the photographic image. She has traveled to Poland on a grants from Artslink, and The Kittredge Fund in preparation for her series, The Woods, a personal reflection on landscape, for her, a place of both fear and fantasy. While in Warsaw she also performed in a trilogy of videos by the Polish artist Jacek Malinowski. Last fall Fitzsimmons was invited by Zacheta Gallery, the National Gallery of Poland to attend the opening reception of Malinowski’s solo exhibition, which included the HalfAWoman Trilogy. While there she participated in a Curator’s guided talk, and also conducted a workshop, In Response to Place, for young artists. 

Fitzsimmons has exhibited globally and online. Her work is in the collection of The Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, MA), The Brooklyn Museum of Art (Brooklyn, NY), The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Additionally, her work is included in the Pierogi Flat Files. Fitzsimmons has exhibited in notable group exhibitions such as Our Bodies Ourselves at the Ely Center for Contemporary Art (New Haven, CT), Dogs at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL), Light from Illumination to Pure Radiance (SF MoMA), and more. Most recently, Fitzsimmons had a solo exhibition entitled Plant Life at the Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, MA).

Fitzsimmons is a Professor in the Department of Art, Architecture + Design at Norwalk Community College (Norwalk, CT) where she oversees the area of photography.

MFA,  The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
BFA,   Washington University School of Art, St. Louis, MO