Simiya Sudduth

Based in St. Louis, MO

Simiya is a Black + Indigenous (Choctaw + Chickasaw) mother, multidisciplinary artist and art educator. They maintain a fluid creative practice that primarily manifests in the realm of public art, and social practice. Their work explores the intersections of healing, ecology, social justice, and spirituality. Simiya’s expansive creative practice ranges from digital illustration, designing and painting murals to experimental sound healing performances.

Artist/Practice Statement — I am a mother, artist, and educator. My multidisciplinary creative practice manifests in the forms of large-scale public murals, illustrations, paintings, experimental sound healing performances, and other forms of public art and social practice work. My practice serves as a provocation for both personal and collective healing. I believe that art serves as a unique form of translation for the human experience. I view the very act of creation as sacred within itself. I view my role as an artist as a sacred storyteller, translator, messenger, and creator of cultureWithin my practice, I explore the concepts of healing, spirituality, justice, the landscape and joy. The cards + illustrations featured in the 2024 Facing Race Conference are part of my ongoing tarot card-based illustration series: The Confluence Tarot. Within The Confluence Tarot, I explore the histories, cultures, systems, institutions, landscapes, and diverse living beings of the Mississippi River watershed: past, present, and future. This work is heavily inspired by the iconic/classic Rider-Waite-Smith tarot card deck. This work, alongside the rest of my creative practice, serves as an offering to the Land, Ancestors, and Beings within the spaces of the great Mississippi River.