I'm Already an Actor: Fin Simonetti
4 June - 1 August 2026

  • Albion Jeune is delighted to present the first painting exhibition by Fin Simonetti (b. 1985, Vancouver), I'm Already an Actor. In an uncharacteristically personal body of work, Simonetti grapples with her agency as an artist, notions of security, and the mechanics of anthropomorphisation. While recovering from an injury Simonetti found herself unable to create sculpture. Estranged from her body, she turned to painting, initially depicting sculptures that she could not physically produce. Over time, a distinct body of work emerged, establishing a new material channel in her practice.

     

    The exhibition’s title, I'm Already an Actor, originated as an intrusive thought Simonetti had when she began painting. Incomplete, its meaning was initially elusive. In her sculpture, Simonetti uses the bunny form to interrogate anthropomorphisation, but when this motif migrated into two dimensions, she found herself using the animal form to animate emotion, implicating herself within her own framework. Whereas Simonetti’s installations often engage with how security is negotiated in public space, that vulnerability enters the first person in her paintings. The exhibition’s title also alludes to her performative identity as an artist—a concept she confronted while her self-perception as a sculptor dissolved alongside her physical abilities.

  • Across the paintings, figures emerge and spring between canvases in veils of ochre, rust, violet, and bruised gold. Undermining their...

    Across the paintings, figures emerge and spring between canvases in veils of ochre, rust, violet, and bruised gold. Undermining their status as vulnerable prey or a companion species, the bunnies flex hyperbolic muscles in states of fight or flight. The bulbous shapes of limbs are mirrored in carved stone pacifiers backed with lock shackles. Simonetti uses the seductive nature of stone manipulatively, creating tactile objects that appear soft and candylike, but in reality would crack one’s teeth.

     

    Across the show, bunny limbs extend into matchstick forms. Elongated candle flames carved from emerald onyx, marble, and honeycomb calcite echo the tips of the painted animal ears, which are set alight. Once again, there is a tension at play between notions of danger and comfort. The flames are ambiguously legible as either a threat, or a source of ritual warmth.

     

  • Simonetti’s work engages with animals that have been processed through anthropocentric systems of meaning, viewed along a spectrum from anthropomorphised to objectified. Held simultaneously, these lenses negate each other, while pointing to an absence at the centre: the actual animal. Within this framework, Simonetti is interested in the bunny as an image that has been thoroughly metabolized by culture. Divorced from specificity, it becomes an empty and infinitely flexible vessel. This logic manifests formally in her paintings, where bunny shapes recur with subtle variation and break down into abstractions. Made with no source material aside from her previous paintings, the artist creates a self-referential and autopoietic vocabulary.

     

    “Materiality and its place in society is contemplated by Simonetti, who puts materials in an architectural context for a wider consideration of architecture’s role in literally upholding social hierarchies.” – Hannah Silver, “Meet the New York-based artists destabilising the boundaries of society ", Wallpaper Magazine, 23 October 2023.  

  • Fin Simonetti (b. 1985, Vancouver) is a Canadian artist and musician based in New York. Simonetti received her BFA from...

    Fin Simonetti (b. 1985, Vancouver) is a Canadian artist and musician based in New York. Simonetti received her BFA from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2009. Her work examines the entangled relationship between measures of control and desires for security. Simonetti uses imagery that is designed to tap into our visceral fears, and conceptually moves between rendering sculptural forms that represent both protection and vulnerability. The artist’s frequent use of stained glass references its history as a common trade amongst Italian immigrants in Canada, including the artist’s own family.

     

    Recent solo exhibitions include Hardening, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2023); Our Denomination, Cooper Cole, Toronto, Canada (2022); My Volition, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2021); Fin Simonetti: An Appeal to Heaven, alongside Louise Bourgeois and Chris Curreri, Esker Foundation, Calgary, Canada (2021); Head Gusset, Cooper Cole, Toronto (2019); Pledge, Company Gallery, New York (2019); Pastoral Emergency, SIGNAL, New York (2018); LIFEMORTS, Interstate Projects, New York (2017); and IS PATH WARM?, Good Weather, Little Rock, AK (2017). Group exhibitions include Prosthesis, Haynes Art Projects, Chicago (2023); Drawings by Sculptors, Helena Anrather, New York (2023); Second Best Scenario, Francesca Minini, Milan (2022); Summer Nights, curated by Kahil Irving, Canada, New York (2022); Summer Days, curated by Kahil Irving, Klaus von Nichtssagend, New York (2022); Concrete Spiritual, Morán Morán, Los Angeles (2022); Recent Sculpture, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2022); Realism of the Game, Tranzit, Bucharest, Romania (2021); Material Conditions, Matthew Brown, Los Angeles (2020); To dream a man, Clima, Milan (2020); Harvest, curated by Bob Linder, Slash Art, San Francisco (2020); Dog Days, Clearing, New York (2019); New Moon, Hotel Art Pavilion, New York (2019); Cerrajeria, Lock Up International, Mexico City (2018); Eye to Eye, Arsenal Contemporary, New York (2018); Altered, Company Gallery, New York (2018); At the End of the Game, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York (2018); Pleasure Over Matter, The Space Company, San Francisco (2018); Fear Faire, Marinaro, New York (2018); The Belly & the Members, MX Gallery, New York (2018); Paperweights, Fisher Parrish, New York (2017); and Industry Woman, MoMA PS1, New York (2016), among others.

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