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Gregg Simpson
SHADOW TALK
Ink Drawings and Constructions
Artifact Gallery
84 Orchard St., New York
April 04-23, 2018
Read an introduction to this series by Allan Graubard
Allegory
ink drawing, 30" x 22", 2014
Machinations
ink construction, 30" x 22", 2016
Centaur
ink drawing, 19.5" x 25.5", 2014
Voodoo
ink drawing, 20.5" x 19.5", 2014
Crystalline Landscape
ink construction, 30" x 22", 2014
Air Strike
ink drawing, 30" x 22", 2014
Aeronautics
ink drawing, 30" x 22", 2016
Uprising
ink construction, 30" x 22", 2016
Intervention
ink construction, 30" x 22", 2016
The Opening
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Gregg Simpson is an artist of vivacious energy who trusts his hand to lead his eye with precision and speed. Add in the vectors of chance, which he courts on the run, fueled by emotions that root him to earth, and his drawings, just born, resonate. Never still yet completely formed, fresh but not innocent, they seem to clarify in glimpses and sudden shifts the relationships we experience between the intimate, social, and historical events of our time; a complexity that Simpson reveals with the touch and sweep of a maestro. Nourished by the traditions that inspire him – from calligraphy to surrealism and gestural abstraction -- he invites us into his drawings, asking only that we see them anew, one by one or as a group, the one enhancing the other. How can we not? The strength and tone of the ink that comes from his foam brush – the tool he uses in these drawings – parallels his uncanny skill in compelling between dark and light areas a sense of dimensional space, intensive and extensive, and as much physically placed as psychologically and musically interactive. For there is music in these drawings, too… Simpson also has an acute linguistic sense by way of the titles to his drawings, which inform and reform the drawings and our encounter with them. I take them in several ways, whether metaphorically or explicitly; linguistic prisms of a sort that signify choice of theme, however they do so, and which even if explicit continue to signify. As a writer I am intrigued by this duet, title to drawing, especially when I note that these titles can tell tales -- another prismatic effect of Simpson’s art -- but now, of course, with words that come between them. It’s a game all right, my game, but games have a tendency to stalk the moment with a seriousness that belies their playfulness, something Simpson knows very well, and which these drawings confirm. The drawings of Gregg Simpson create their own landscapes, inscapes and air space. And they dance. Grab hold of one, of several or them all. You won’t need to wait. It or they will sweep you away… Allan Graubard, poet, writer and art historian, New York, 2018 |
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