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Doni Silver Simons is a painter who integrates installation and performance. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Silver Simons received a Bachelor of Studio Arts degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1971, where she studied with Susan Hauptman. She then served as a VISTA Volunteer with the White Mountain Apache Tribe in east central Arizona; performed with noted director Richard Reichman, a protégé of Rina Yerushalmi and Living Theatre; and, in 1974, earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Drawing from Wayne State University in Detroit.

She was in the forefront of that city’s vibrant art scene with her powerful work that often combined drawing, installation, and performance. Her many solo exhibitions and performances include Zero Plus (performance, Wayne State University, 1975); Salted Harmonics (exhibition, Gallery 720, Lynchburg, Virginia, 1976); Centric East (installation, Lowell Nesbitt Studio, New York, 1977); and Caesura II, a ceremony (performance, Loft of George Vihos, New York, 1978). Silver Simons’ group exhibitions and performances include Drawings USA, (exhibition, Minneapolis Museum of Art, 1976); Sculpture ’77 (exhibition, Macomb Community College, Detroit, 1977); and Caesura I (performance, Detroit Institute of Arts, New Video and Performance, 1978). During this period, she was represented by Detroit’s Feigenson-Rosenstein Gallery.

Silver Simons subsequently relocated to Los Angeles and participated in a number of seminal solo and group exhibitions and performances including Caesura III (performance, Mount St. Mary’s College, 1978); Six Downtown Sculptors, (exhibition, LACE, 1979); Caesura (A Study), (exhibition, University of California, Irvine, 1979); Episodes (exhibition, LACE, 1980); and Contemporaries: 17 Artists (exhibition, Security Pacific Bank, Los Angeles, 1980). As in Detroit, she taught and lectured at universities and museums such as California State University, Northridge; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the University of California, Irvine. During the 1980s and1990s she continued to mentor young artists and create work but did not present her projects publicly. Silver Simons resumed exhibiting in galleries in 2006. Her recent solo shows include Center Justified; …lines… (Sherry Frumkin Gallery, Santa Monica, 2007 and 2009 respectively); and Marked (exhibition and performance, Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles, 2009). Select group exhibitions include Tradition and Transformation (Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, 2008); Global Soul, (Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, 2009); and FRESH (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2009). A recipient of numerous grants and commissions, Silver Simons’ work is in many private collections and in the public collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts; the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington D.C.; and the University of Michigan Art Museum, Detroit. Silver Simons lives and works in Los Angeles.