Kristy Simmons has been recognized both locally and nationally for her work. In 1990 she was named Maryland Distinguished Scholar by the Maryland Higher Education Commission for her achievements in art. This award included a $12,000 scholarship to study art anywhere in the state of Maryland. She also won many regional awards from organizations including the Washington Regional Scholastic Art Awards Foundation and the Maryland Artist Equity Foundation, and her work won her an Individual Artist Grant from the Arts Council of Montgomery County. She was selected to learn printmaking concepts at the Smithsonian Institution, and nationally her portfolio received honors from the National Scholastic Art Awards, the National Arts Recognition & Talent Search and the Pratt National Talent Search.
Kristy Simmons received her Bachelors of Art at the University of California - Santa Cruz. At UCSC she received both the Dean's and Chancellor's Awards as well as an Irwin Scholarship for artistic merit. She traveled abroad to study art in Italy her junior year where she explored firsthand the Italian masters which gave influence to her work.
Kristy Simmons has exhibited extensively throughout the country. Her work has been selected for numerous exhibitions in Maryland, Virginia and California, as well as in Boston and Chicago. She has exhibited at Fraser Gallery in Washington, D.C., Artspace in Richmond, Virginia, and the Museum of Natural History, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art. She has been selected for exhibitions by many esteemed curators, including Jack Cowart, former Curator of Contemporary Art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, JoAnne Moser, Curator of Graphic Arts at The National Museum of American Art, J.W. Mahoney, Washington Art Correspondent for Art in America, and Lenny Campello and Deborah McLeod, independent curators.
Kristy Simmons’ art has been featured in the media in segments on NBC News, ABC News and the Montgomery Cable Channel as well as in The Washington Post, The Montgomery Journal and The Baltimore Sun.
Presently, Kristy Simmons lives in Bethesda, Maryland, where she maintains her studio.
