Gary Simmons is a contemporary African-American artist known for his works which explore race and collective memory. Simmons uses symbols of oppression such as Ku Klux Klan hoods along with iconic materials like blackboards and white chalk to confront difficult subject matter. “I am concerned with figuring absence, with negotiating between the static vocabulary of race, gender and class stereotype and the invisibility of the dimension of human history in the objects I create,” he has said. Born on April 14, 1964 in New York, NY, he receive his BFA from the School of Visuals Arts in 1988 before going on to earn an MFA from CalArts in 1990. After graduating, Simmons returned to New York where he set up a studio in a former school building. It was there that the artist first employed the blackboards and chalk left behind in the classrooms as a medium for his art. Simmons currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among others.