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

  • Albion Jeune is pleased to present I'm Already an Actor, an exhibition of new work by Fin Simonetti (b. 1985, Vancouver) presenting stone sculpture alongside her first display of paintings. In an uncharacteristically personal body of work, Simonetti grapples with themes of agency, cruelty, and the mechanics of anthropomorphisation. 

     

    While recovering from a injury, Simonetti found herself unable to make sculpture; a period the artist refers to as the “Dark Ages". Estranged from her body, she turned to painting in private—initially depicting sculptures that she was unable to make. 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 and...

    The exhibition’s title, I'm Already an Actor, originated as an intrusive thought Simonetti had when she began painting. Incomplete and potentially defensive, its meaning was initially elusive. In her sculpture, Simonetti uses the bunny form to interrogate anthropomorphisation, but as this motif migrates into two dimensions, she uses the animal to animate emotion, implicating herself within her own framework. Simonetti’s installation work often engages with how security is negotiated in public space, whereas in painting, that vulnerability enters first person. The phrase also alludes to her performance of identity as an artist—a concept she confronted during the “Dark Ages” as her self-perception as a sculptor dissolved with her physical abilities. 

     

    Broadly, Simonetti’s work engages with animals that have been processed through human systems of meaning, 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. As a cultural object, the bunny has been thoroughly metabolized. 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 abstraction. Blocks of colour are separated by thin lines, like solder around panels of stained glass. Made with no source material aside from her previous paintings, the artist creates a self-referential and autopoietic vocabulary. 

  • Simonetti approaches cuteness as a subtle form of cruelty in which value is ascribed across species hierarchically, rewarding proximity to humans. Cuteness is deployed manipulatively as a lure: here, the artist connects to Lisa Yuskavage’s antagonistic early paintings. Undermining their status as vulnerable prey animals, Simonetti's bunnies flex hyperbolic and slightly demented muscles. The tip of the bunnies’ ears end in flames, their legs elongate into matches. It is not clear if the flame is a threat (and if so, to us or them?). 

     

    A series of hand-carved stone sculptural works continue recurring motifs in the artist’s work. Stone pacifiers backed with lock shackles illicit a tension between cruelty and humour. She uses stone manipulatively, creating objects that appear soft and appealing like candy but would crack your teeth. Her candle sculptures consider the tension between fire as both potential threat and source of domestic comfort. Simonetti proposes a world imbued with ambient danger. 

     

    “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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