For Simiya Sudduth, art really got started with Frida Kahlo.
"I've always been a creative person," Sudduth says, explaining that she'd picked up her artist mom's Kahlo book one day. "I felt like a portal or like a door inside my brain opened up that had never been opened before. I just felt so transformed by seeing Frida Kahlo's artwork and her creativity, and I think it kind of unlocked my creativity as a teenager."
Sudduth, 36, who is originally from Inglewood, California, has stayed on the art beat ever since, which is how they came to St. Louis. They studied fine arts and sculptures at Webster University and then landscape architecture at Washington University. Sudduth is also working toward an MFA in visual studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art at Willamette University.
After earning their undergraduate degree in 2010, Sudduth began experimenting with various media, starting with painting murals and adding on sound healing and more in 2017. Since then, they've become known for their murals, which can be spotted on a variety of St. Louis buildings. They're eye-catching, with saturated colors and simple but effective designs, and they are even more interesting when you learn the intention behind them.
A Black and Indigenous (Choctaw and Chickasaw) artist, Sudduth's work explores the intersections of healing, ecology, social justice and spirituality.
"The biggest part of my work that is most important to me is public art and social-practice-related work," they say. "So that looks more like murals, sound healings and social interventions because I'm really passionate about [how] accessible art and public art can reach people and transform things in a way that gallery artwork can't."
Since 2020, Sudduth has painted nine large-scale murals, including Justice at 2311 Jefferson Avenue, which was part of last summer's Counterpublic; From Infinity to Infinity, which is part of the Kranzberg Arts Foundation's Walls Off Washington mural walk; Medicine at St. Louis Lambert International Airport; and more in Illinois, Minnesota and Oregon.
With each piece, Sudduth hopes to bring awareness, education and healing. Take, for example, Justice, which takes the form of the namesake tarot card. In the mural, a Black woman in a bright red dress stands in a field of cotton plants, holding cotton in her arms. Sudduth hopes those viewing it will think about social issues and reparations.
"Depending on the subject matter of the mural, I want people to have an experience of joy or 'Wow,' or, 'This is interesting,'" they say. "But then some of my other pieces are like those of echinacea — that's an Indigenous healing plant — so I want us to think about the land and how the land shows up for us."
They've also worked in other media, including digital illustration. An example of the latter is Sudduth's Convergence, digital illustrations printed on the outdoor pavilion for Great Rivers Greenway's new Chain of Rocks Park. The artwork, which will be revealed during the park's grand opening in April, will feature the Mississippi Flyway migratory route and the unique Chain of Rocks river geology with several different birds such as the cardinal, blue jay, hummingbird and more.
"The Mississippi River and adjacent wetlands and woodlands are an important source of food, water and shelter for birds along their migration route," Sudduth says. "I created illustrations of birds and limestone on a really bright hot pink background that will surround the inside and outside of a pavilion to offer a blast of color in the space all year round, and to create a feeling of fun and whimsy in the redesigned park space."
Sudduth has participated in exhibitions at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Intersect Arts Center, the Luminary, COCA, the Contemporary Art Museum and the Chicago Urban Art Society.
"I'm not really a gallery-based artist," they say, but note that they'd like to expand this way in the future.
Sudduth has won grants from the Regional Arts Commission, the Missouri Arts Council, the Luminary, ACRE, the Sam Fox School of Design and more. But getting Justice written up in the New York Times might be the highlight for Sudduth.
"[It] is the biggest win I've ever had in my life," they say. "I felt very proud about that."
They have also explored their art through sound baths and meditation, and have created a wellness video series for the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, a living yoga studio — a collaboration with Earth Dance Farms and Yoga Buzz that exists within an old greenhouse at Earth Dance Farms, with flooring made of planted herbs and perennial plants — and the Muthaship, a pop-up mobile wellness studio centering wellness and health sovereignty for Black and indigenous individuals and other people of color.
"I am also a baby DJ," Sudduth says. "I'm really hoping I can expand in that way because I do a lot of experimental sound healing with singing bowls. ... Curating sounds is another area that I'm really focusing on."
But ultimately, their goal is to continue making art, paint more murals and do more public artwork.
"I've gotten into the habit of sending out ideas to neighborhoods being like, 'Hey, I would like to paint a mural in this neighborhood,'" they say, adding that self-funded grants help support this work. "I think sometimes people would love a mural somewhere, but I also want to get paid for my work because art is so expensive, and it's a huge undertaking."
This spring, Sudduth will take part in an outdoor installation for the Bioneers Conference in Berkeley, California, and travel to New York for an art residency. They have plans to paint another tarot card mural in St. Louis. To keep up with their art, follow them on Instagram @spiritscapesss or visit spiritscapes.life.
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
