Nancy Simmons Smith is a painter living in Peterborough, Ontario where she has been making art for 35 years and exhibiting since 2001.

Non-objective art became an important focus in Nancy’s life in the early 1990s. Her non-objective paintings begin spontaneously and she works intuitively burying and unearthing marks to explore surface, shape, colour, texture and composition. She uses dry media and acrylic paints on paper, canvas and boards.

Nancy also enjoys working from the model and her figurative practice (primarily portraits) is anchored in a weekly life-drawing group that has been together since 2009. During the dark days of the pandemic she launched a series of caricatures called COVID People to amuse and distract her friends. In 2022 this series evolved into a new one called Knowing Women, several of which are also available as greeting cards.

Since COVID Nancy’s work has been exhibited at A Place for the Arts (Bancroft), the Stonewood Gallery (Cobourg) and Studio 5 Gallery (Peterborough). She is an artist member of the Women’s Art Association of Canada and was on the Art Gallery of Peterborough’s Kawartha Autumn Studio Tour in 2023.

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EXHIBITIONS

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2019

Water, Women’s Art Association of Canada, Toronto
SPARK at Kawartha Artists Gallery (KAGS), Peterborough People’s Choice Award 
67th Annual Juried Exhibition, Colour and Form Society, Etobicoke

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2018

Bathing Beauties and Blue Lagoons, Kent Farndale Gallery, Port Perry
Figuratively Speaking, KAGS, Peterborough
Blue Lagoons at Natas Café, Peterborough

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2017
Faces and Figures, KAGS, Peterborough People’s Choice Award
Let There Be Pink, Women’s Art Association of Canada, Toronto
Women of a Certain Age, The Colborne Art Gallery, Colborne
65th Annual Juried Exhibition, Colour and Form Society, Etobicoke

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2016
bare naked 3: larger than life, Peterborough
Figures, KAGS, Peterborough
The Abstract Show, KAGS, Peterborough

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2015
bare naked 2 1/2, Dreams n Beans, Peterborough
Faces and Figures, KAGS, Peterborough
bare naked 2, Peterborough
Expressions, Lew Gallery, Buckhorn
38th Annual Juried Exhibition, Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg
Members’ Juried Show, KAGS, Peterborough

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2014
bare naked 1 1/2, Dreams n Beans, Peterborough
bare naked 2014, Peterborough
Abstracting from Life, KAGS, Peterborough
62nd Annual Juried Exhibition, Colour and Form Society, Etobicoke

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2013
Christmas Show, Christensen Fine Art, Peterborough
Art Gives Good Gifts, Renann Isaacs Contemporary Art, Guelph
Nancy Simmons Smith: Alaria, atelier rzlbd, Toronto
Faces and Figures, KAGS, Peterborough
White on White, Women’s Art Association of Canada, Toronto
Blackwater Art, White Water Gallery, North Bay
61st Annual Juried Exhibition, Colour and Form Society, Etobicoke

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2012
Canadian Landmarks, 60th Anniversary Colour and Form Society Exhibition, Carrier Art Gallery, Toronto
Colour and Form Society Biennial, Todmorden Mills Heritage Centre, Toronto
KAGS, Peterborough

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2011
Artist Members’ Show, Women’s Art Association of Canada, Toronto
KAGS, Peterborough
59th Annual Juried Exhibition, Colour and Form Society, Etobicoke
“girls!”, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago

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2010
Colour and Form Society Biennial, Todmorden Mills Heritage Centre, Toronto
KAGS, Peterborough
58th Annual Juried Exhibition, Colour and Form Society, Etobicoke

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2009
Colour and Form Society at Gallery 1313, Toronto
57th Annual Juried Exhibition, Colour and Form Society, Etobicoke

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2008
Colour and Form Society Biennial, Todmorden Mills Heritage Centre, Toronto
56th Annual Juried Exhibition, Colour and Form Society, Etobicoke

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2007
Abstracts 3, Peterborough
55th Annual Juried Exhibition, Colour and Form Society, Etobicoke
24 Hours in the City, Red Eye Gallery, Distillery District, Toronto
2-3-d-6, Energy Gallery, Toronto

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2006
2×2 Touring Exhibition, Colour and Form Society – various galleries in Ontario
Furniture, Fissures and Fancies, ARTeMS, Twohey’s Furniture, Peterborough
54th Annual Juried Exhibition, Colour and Form Society, Etobicoke, Ontario – First Prize
Convergence, Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery, Owen Sound

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2005
53rd Annual Juried Exhibition, Colour and Form Society, Etobicoke, Prize for Best Abstract

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2004
Spirit of Trent, 40th Anniversary, Trent University, Peterborough
Road Trip, Trapeze, WAAC,  Toronto
Women’s Work II, Cossar Art Centre, Peterborough
Bod and Abode, Women’s Art Association of Canada, Toronto

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2003
Without a Net, Trapeze, WAAC,  Toronto

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2002
Objects of Desire, Trapeze, WAAC, Toronto

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2001
Imaging the Self, Trapeze, WAAC, Toronto
Art and Healing, Peterborough Regional Health Centre Foundation, Peterborough