For the past decade Simms has developed several series that feature animal forms – plush, taxidermy and bones – in paintings, drawings and sculpture.
[15] James Campbell in White Hot Magazine of Contemporary Art wrote: “In these drawings, harvested shadows make the dead animals that cast them live again, with otherworldly feral grace.
[24] In the exhibition catalogue for Haunted By You, René Viau wrote: “Though related to kitsch and referring to a world of consumerism and big-box stores, these canvases are clearly grounded in an historical pictorial tradition.
This work is distinguished as much by skillful representation, for example, the inventive virtuoso renderings of the texture of fake fur, as by the emphasis on the overall surface and paint handling.”[25] In 2010, Simms completed a large number of small paintings on paper that explore two ambiguously related subjects: details of Michael Jackson’s face from different periods of his life and close-ups of plush toys.
[28] Based on mugshots of female offenders “wanted mostly for fraud”, Simms created a series of large portraits entitled Fugitive.
[30] In an exhibition essay about these works, Martha Langford wrote that Simms “wants them for fraud, for the perpetration of pictorial fictions in her studio.