Aurora Picture Show will honor photographer and artist Laurie Simmons at the 12th Annual Aurora Award Dinner. The award will be presented at an intimate affair with cocktails, dinner, a screening of her work — including The Music of Regret, from Tiny Furniture, and a short video with The Love Doll — and a presentation ceremony.

At cocktail time, a color-blocked slide show of still images created for The Gothenburg Museum in Sweden exhibition of Simmons' work will feature red, yellow and blue images. 

Simmons is an internationally recognized artist. Since the mid-'70s, she has staged scenes for her camera with dolls, ventriloquist dummies, mannequins and occasionally people, to create images with intensely psychological subtexts. Marked by intentional dislocations and unexpected conjunctions, the nonlinear narratives she creates echo those of memories and dreams. By the early 1980s, Simmons was at the forefront of a new generation of artists, predominantly woman, whose use of the media as subject began a new dialogue in contemporary art. 

Each year Aurora's curator Mary Magsamen selects a Texas-based artist to create an art piece representative of the Aurora Award. This year, Gabriel Martinez, who attended the Glassell School of Arts Core Residency Program and was also an artist-in-residence at Project Row Houses, will create a sculpture that will be presented to Simmons.