Artist Lily Simonson talked about her work, Painting the Deep.

Lily Simonson works in tandem with researchers at remote field sites to create larger-than-life paintings of extraordinary organisms and extreme environments—from the deep sea to Antarctica. Enveloping viewers in dramatic, atmospheric scenes, her work evokes the immersive experience of exploration. 

Simonson has embedded as an Artist at Sea on six oceanographic expeditions aboard the E/V Nautilus and R/Vs Melville, Falkor,and Atlantis. As the 2014-15 NSF Antarctic Artists and Writers Program Awardee, Simonson spent three months camping and scuba diving beneath the sea ice in Antarctica.  Her current solo exhibition Lily Simonson: Painting the Deep will be on view at the Harvard Museum of Natural History until June 30, 2019. Simonson's paintings have been exhibited throughout the US and Europe and her work has appeared in a range of media outlets, including Interview Magazine, MTV, Atlas Obscuara, Pacific Standard, the Los Angeles Times, and LA Weekly. Simonson holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MFA in Painting from UCLA. She has taught painting and drawing at Cal Poly Pomona and UC Berkeley. To view more of her work, visit lilysimonson.com and oldgenres.com