Rose B. Simpson at Chiaroscuro
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Publication: Journal Santa Fe Section; Date: Aug 19, 2011; Section: Venue; Page: S8 CONVINCING CREATIONS Sculptural works don’t have to show the whole human body to get ideas across Art Issues MALIN WILSONPOWELL For the Journal The fierce and fragile ceramic figures in Rose B. Simpson’s current “Thesis” exhibition at Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art Gallery on Canyon Road are a must-see. Her breakthrough patchwork sculptures of human bodies are constructed with thin sheets of fiberclay. The physical and metaphorical properties are direct, freighted and multitudinous. Humans are clay, i.e. arise from the earth. They are naked, i.e. vulnerable. Every human is a patchwork, i.e., an agglomeration of cultural fragments, influences, and strivings. Apparently, because of the quick-drying material, each piecedtogether figure was completed in a single, intense studio session. The results have the flourish found in excellent sketches and watercolors, and there is enough training and craft behind their quick execution that the figures are brimming with convincing postures and gestures. Simpson’s ingenious solutions range from making teensy, hold-inyour-hand, Lilliputian figures to human-scale articulated bodies, hands, legs and thighs. Like the artwork in this exhibition, the title, “Thesis,” is both straightforward and incomplete. The bulk of the show is a recapitulation of Simpson’s two-year output in the 2011 successful completion of her master’s degree in ceramics at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). A native of New Mexico with venerable maternal roots in art, clay, and life at Santa Clara Pueblo, she is the daughter of the renowned clay sculptor Roxanne Swentzell. Her show did not open on Friday, Aug. 12 — in sync with other Canyon Road galleries — because she was dancing in the pueblo’s patron saint feast day. Her father, Patrick Simpson, is a notable contemporary sculptor of forged, welded and wood boats. Rose Simpson, it seems, had to go far away from home to come back home with a vision completely her own. Ever since she began making art and performing in local alternative bands she has carried a heavy load of expectations. In addition to exhibiting widely, she was pursued by and signed on with Chiaroscuro gallery in 2007, the year she earned her bachelor’s degree in studio arts from both the Institute of American Indian Arts and the University of New Mexico. Her sculpture is installed here so that visitors can follow her journey in reverse. It is a journey of self-discovery that includes series of work that ask questions that lead to further questions. As you enter the foyer gallery, a portrait bust panel in clay titled “To Call a Spade a Spade” features a photo transfer of actress Michelle Rodriquez in a Jack-of-Spades, black-on-white, playing card composition. Rodriquez is a natural beauty known for playing the tough girl, and her bravado could be Simpson’s: “You can keep knocking me down forever, I’ll keep getting up and trying.” In the large second gallery, full-sized naked female figures with helmet heads that are restrained by steel chains appear to guard a cluster of Simpson tableaux on pedestals. Titled “Intellectual Conversation,” these two formidable, scrappy creatures face off, at the end of their tethers. One of them is crouching ready to spring, and the other is curled onto shoulder and knee. Their encounter is visceral, a bit chilling and suggests the deadly seriousness of wrestling with abstract dilemmas. Past the straining guardians, most of the small-scale scenarios are from two series — a cozy group of relaxed figures inside reed baskets “Pods III, IV, and V” and a series about assumptions titled “The Answer That Ended Creation A thru F.” Tender tiny figures sit, stand, contemplate and look upward for answers atop darkened steel pedestals. On the walls are a solo swaddled and precariously dangling figure titled “Dear Adrenaline” and a sweet photo series about the security of a mother’s protection. All of these pieces, especially “The Answer That Ended Creation” reflect a hard won conviction that art isn’t about finding answers but finding new, meaningful questions to probe. Creation is ended in the leap to answers or conclusions that effectively close down the process of perceiving what really goes on. A far cry from traditional pueblo storyteller figurines, Simpson’s unglazed figures in cream, terra cotta, and brown-black clay tell very personal stories that elevate the dignity of raw individual experience to universal import. The exhibition culminates in the final gallery, leading us to the beginning of the artist’s quest. There is a human-sized nest titled “Missing Note Pod” — a clever double entendre — for this encrusted hanging stickand-waddle pod equipped with speakers attached to an iPod that plays the artist’s semi-articulate humming. Simpson has literally emerged from the embrace of this mud cocoon to sing her song through clay. Nearby is a footless, shamanistic and encumbered figure simply called “Ceramics.” Wrapped and tied up and heavily laden with loose pieces of ceramics, if this restless, haunted creature could move it would rattle and hiss. “Reach” is an extraordinary piece of pure propulsion toward and away from powerful forces. Even though the figure’s feet are also missing, with its arms as thrusting spears, its hands spread wide open and mouth agape, this is as surefooted and convincing as a sculpture can be. CONVINCING CREATIONS http://epaper.abqjournal.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=Ol... 1 of 5 9/14/11 9:05 AM
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Review of Rose B. Simpson "Thesis" exhibition at Chiarscuro Contemporary Art, Santa Fe
Transcript of Rose B. Simpson at Chiaroscuro
Publication: Journal Santa Fe Section; Date: Aug 19, 2011; Section: Venue; Page: S8
CONVINCING CREATIONS Sculptural works don’t have to show the whole human body to get ideas across Art Issues
MALIN WILSONPOWELL
For the Journal
The fierce and fragile ceramic figures in Rose B. Simpson’s current “Thesis” exhibition at Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art Gallery onCanyon Road are a must-see. Her breakthrough patchwork sculptures of human bodies are constructed with thin sheets of fiberclay. Thephysical and metaphorical properties are direct, freighted and multitudinous. Humans are clay, i.e. arise from the earth. They arenaked, i.e. vulnerable. Every human is a patchwork, i.e., an agglomeration of cultural fragments, influences, and strivings.
Apparently, because of the quick-drying material, each piecedtogether figure was completed in a single, intense studio session. Theresults have the flourish found in excellent sketches and watercolors, and there is enough training and craft behind their quick executionthat the figures are brimming with convincing postures and gestures. Simpson’s ingenious solutions range from making teensy,hold-inyour-hand, Lilliputian figures to human-scale articulated bodies, hands, legs and thighs.
Like the artwork in this exhibition, the title, “Thesis,” is both straightforward and incomplete. The bulk of the show is a recapitulation ofSimpson’s two-year output in the 2011 successful completion of her master’s degree in ceramics at the Rhode Island School of Design(RISD). A native of New Mexico with venerable maternal roots in art, clay, and life at Santa Clara Pueblo, she is the daughter of therenowned clay sculptor Roxanne Swentzell. Her show did not open on Friday, Aug. 12 — in sync with other Canyon Road galleries —because she was dancing in the pueblo’s patron saint feast day. Her father, Patrick Simpson, is a notable contemporary sculptor offorged, welded and wood boats.
Rose Simpson, it seems, had to go far away from home to come back home with a vision completely her own. Ever since she beganmaking art and performing in local alternative bands she has carried a heavy load of expectations. In addition to exhibiting widely, shewas pursued by and signed on with Chiaroscuro gallery in 2007, the year she earned her bachelor’s degree in studio arts from both theInstitute of American Indian Arts and the University of New Mexico.
Her sculpture is installed here so that visitors can follow her journey in reverse. It is a journey of self-discovery that includes series ofwork that ask questions that lead to further questions. As you enter the foyer gallery, a portrait bust panel in clay titled “To Call a Spadea Spade” features a photo transfer of actress Michelle Rodriquez in a Jack-of-Spades, black-on-white, playing card composition.Rodriquez is a natural beauty known for playing the tough girl, and her bravado could be Simpson’s: “You can keep knocking me downforever, I’ll keep getting up and trying.”
In the large second gallery, full-sized naked female figures with helmet heads that are restrained by steel chains appear to guard acluster of Simpson tableaux on pedestals. Titled “Intellectual Conversation,” these two formidable, scrappy creatures face off, at the endof their tethers. One of them is crouching ready to spring, and the other is curled onto shoulder and knee. Their encounter is visceral, abit chilling and suggests the deadly seriousness of wrestling with abstract dilemmas.
Past the straining guardians, most of the small-scale scenarios are from two series — a cozy group of relaxed figures inside reedbaskets “Pods III, IV, and V” and a series about assumptions titled “The Answer That Ended Creation A thru F.” Tender tiny figures sit,stand, contemplate and look upward for answers atop darkened steel pedestals. On the walls are a solo swaddled and precariouslydangling figure titled “Dear Adrenaline” and a sweet photo series about the security of a mother’s protection. All of these pieces,especially “The Answer That Ended Creation” reflect a hard won conviction that art isn’t about finding answers but finding new,meaningful questions to probe. Creation is ended in the leap to answers or conclusions that effectively close down the process ofperceiving what really goes on. A far cry from traditional pueblo storyteller figurines, Simpson’s unglazed figures in cream, terra cotta,and brown-black clay tell very personal stories that elevate the dignity of raw individual experience to universal import.
The exhibition culminates in the final gallery, leading us to the beginning of the artist’s quest. There is a human-sized nest titled“Missing Note Pod” — a clever double entendre — for this encrusted hanging stickand-waddle pod equipped with speakers attached toan iPod that plays the artist’s semi-articulate humming. Simpson has literally emerged from the embrace of this mud cocoon to sing hersong through clay. Nearby is a footless, shamanistic and encumbered figure simply called “Ceramics.” Wrapped and tied up and heavilyladen with loose pieces of ceramics, if this restless, haunted creature could move it would rattle and hiss.
“Reach” is an extraordinary piece of pure propulsion toward and away from powerful forces. Even though the figure’s feet are alsomissing, with its arms as thrusting spears, its hands spread wide open and mouth agape, this is as surefooted and convincing as asculpture can be.
CONVINCING CREATIONS http://epaper.abqjournal.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=Ol...
1 of 5 9/14/11 9:05 AM
The protean nature of Simpson’s new work is evident in the many unlikely precedents it brings to mind including Luca della Robbia’s15th century ceramic wall reliefs of the Virgin Mary, the correspondence of lively translucence of thin sheets of cream clay with the glowof Bernini’s marble, the animation of Deborah Butterfield’s pieced-together horses, and the strangeness of Thomas Schutte’s ceramicheads and body-part sketches on steel shelves.
With her “Thesis,” Simpson has returned home with much more to stand upon than an academic degree. The artist has successfullyexamined numerous propositions and found she’s not looking for conclusions; rather she’s emerging, rising, reaching, and piecingtogether the partial and the fragmentary to explore what she doesn’t know. If you go
WHAT: Rose B. Simpson: “Thesis”
WHERE: Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art, 702½ Canyon Road, through Sept. 10
HOURS: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday
CONTACT: 505 986-1221 or 505 992-0711 or www.ChiaroscuroSantaFe.com
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“Reach” is a 2011 ceramic and steel sculpture by Rose B. Simpson.
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COURTESY CHIAROSCURO CONTEMPORARY ART
An installation view of “Thesis,” Rose B. Simpson’s solo exhibition currently at Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art, shows “Missing Note Pod,”center, a 2010 stick and waddle pod equipped with an iPod and speakers, and “Ceramics,” left, a 2009 mixed-media sculpture.
“Pod III,” is a 2011 ceramic, reed and string sculpture by Rose B. Simpson.
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“The Answer That Ended Creation D” is a 2011 ceramic and adobe sculpture by Rose B. Simpson.
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