D i on n e S i m p s o n

c a r t o g r a p h i e s

D i on n e S i m p s o n

c a r t o g r a p h i e s

The Art Gallery of Peterborough Dionne Simpson: Cartographies

Printed in Canada Copyright © 2010

The Art Gallery of Peterborough 250 Crescent Street Peterborough, Ontario K9J 2G1 Tel: (705) 743-9179 Fax: (705) 743-8168 Email: [email protected] www.agp.on.ca

Catalogue of the exhibition held at the Art Gallery of Peterborough March 12 – May 2, 2010

Curators: Pamela Edmonds and Sally Frater

All rights reserved

ISBN: 1-896809-56-1

Printing: Captain Printworks Design: Tariq Sami @ Histrionics Photography: Wayne Eardley

Under Construction #1, 2010, delineated canvas, hair colour, ink, text, 40” x 40” Under Construction #1 (detail), 2010, delineated canvas, hair colour, ink, text, 40” x 40” Urban Decay #1, 2009, mixed media, 20” x 20” Urban Decay #1 (detail) f o r e w o r d Guest curator, Sally Frater continues deeper in this concept Celeste Scopelites in deciphering the use of the grid as applied to surface; Director systems of measuring and qualifying location and value apply here.

The exhibition and catalogue title Cartographies become, Over the past decade of her art practice, Dionne Simpson significantly appropriate when one considers the concepts it has continuously built on past histories to create new stories. embraces and refers to, each meaning heavy with metaphor The histories are not only her own experiences but they and context. It is a word rich with implicit intention and is a reach into the distant past for technique as well as metaphor. fitting descriptor for this body of work. Her work is very much about surface but we soon see that there is more behind the first reading. Layer upon layer of There are many who have made this catalogue possible. meaning exist in this work. We would like to thank the curators of the exhibition, Pam Edmonds and Sally Frater who brought this intriguing Like reading a map, one can locate a particular fixed point exhibition to the Art Gallery of Peterborough. Thanks goes of attention or one can choose to explore the topography, to Tariq Sami for his sensitivity to the nature of Simpson’s the paths and obstacles to truly understand the nature of work, which is reflected in his inspired catalogue design. the environment. It is this sense of way-finding that both Last, but not least, we thank artist, Dionne Simpson for 8 curators of the exhibition respond to in their essays. Curator, her fine work and generous contribution to the success of 9 Pam Edmonds refers to Simpson’s work as conceptual mapping. the exhibition. Maps are often thought of as tools for getting from here to there. Maps reflect the world reduced to points, lines, and areas, using a variety of visual resources: size, shape, value, texture or pattern, colour, orientation, and shape. Cartography, the study and practice of map-making-combining science, aesthetics and technique-builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that can communicate spatial information effectively.

With the advent of new media/digital art, GIS and mobile tech- nologies, the concern with data collection and mapping has been increasingly pursued by contemporary artists with both fervour i n t r o d u c t i o n and criticality. It is little surprise that, in an era of globalized politics, culture, and ecology, these projects utilize the map in a political and social dimension to produce new configurations of Pamela Edmonds space, subjectivity and power. Here, the map can be viewed as a conceptual tool to experiment with a particular territory in 11 specific ways in order to reach unforeseen destinations. Mapping quite simply becomes a medium for expressing the artist’s own observations and reflections about the contemporary world. For over a decade, artist Dionne Simpson has explored the sites This exhibition came together as a result of the mutual admira- and spaces of cultural urbanization through her distinctive visual tion of Simpson’s oeuvre with Hamilton-based independent practice. Employing the materiality of cotton canvas as a curator Sally Frater. As curators who are similarly interested in metaphor for the underlying fabric of Canadian society, Simpson contemporary art that engages questions of modernity and iden- has built an international career based on her unique works tity politics, Cartographies explores global modernity and identity which are created through a painstaking process inspired by the as fluid and continually unfolding, bringing the post-colonial and West African art of thread pulling-the removal of thread from post-modern into dialogue. Simpson’s multi-layered paintings material in order to create patterns and images. Her latest series are conceptual maps to be deciphered and explored. The reward is highly personal form of Pointillism depicting anonymous is the infinitely varied journeys they take us on. urban landscapes as well as a series of self-portraits that pulsate behind the exposed grids of the de-woven fabric. In these mixed- Pamela Edmonds media paintings, Simpson applies an unorthodox assortment of Art Gallery of Peterborough materials such as wax, soil, ash, hair dye and liquid paper. She further embeds a dizzying array of imagery and symbols sourced from contemporary culture including corporate logos, images of media celebrities and icons, texts and numbers, which are strate- gically placed inside the hundreds of tiny windows formed within the unravelled canvas. Through this relational information, the artist’s work investigates the ways in which the architectural mapping of cities converges upon sites of consumption, commerce and the ethno-cultural histories and class realities of the city’s inhabitants. Through subtraction and addition, the work strikes an intriguing balance between the contemporary and traditional as well as between abstraction and realism.

12 Not only does Simpson construct and deconstruct her own 13 personal history and image in this work, on a broader level, she decodes the very foundations and structures of modern culture, from art and language to community. Under Construction #4 (detail), 2010, delineated canvas, clothing dye, text, 40” x 40” Urban Decay #2, 2009, mixed media: liquid paper, colouring dye, 20” x 20” Urban Decay #3, 2009, mixed media, 20” x 20” Cartographies, installation view, Art Gallery of Peterborough, 2010 In Rosalind Kraus’ oft-cited essay The Originality of the Avant- Garde (1985) she observes that within the practice of many Modernist artists, the visual trope of the grid functioned as a marker of artistic originality. Largely considered to be the vanguard of the avant-garde in Modern art, Kraus notes that the “grid-scored surface”1 of the canvases of artists ranging from Josef Albers to Piet Mondrian and Agnes Martin marked “the image of an absolute beginning”2 that simultaneously offered “the promise of autonomy.”3 The grid’s existence as a cornerstone of non-representational art gave rise to the (fictitious) notion that ( R e ) S a c i n g this “new” kind of art was truly original (irrespective of the fact u r f that this claims potency was diminished each time that it was employed by yet another artist or was used in succession within M o d e r n i s m a particular artist’s practice). Positioned as it was the grid’s potency lay in the fact that due to the emphasis on what lay on its Sally Frater pictorial surface, a work of art could only be evaluated in terms of formal qualities. This meant there was no equivalent of the gridded canvas to be found in nature, no visual referent existed 19 in the world at large and that there was no linguistic terminology that could adequately describe it4. As such, these works ‘existed outside of history’. The discourse that was then created to discuss this type of painting insisted that these works be evaluated by formal qualities alone. This conclusion aided in cementing the notion that this art primarily existed apart from the political and or sociological conditions that existed at the time of its produc- tion, and that these factors bore no influence on them as works of art.

In The Originality of the Avant-Garde (as well as in the earlier by less often cited essay “Grids” from 1976) Kraus refutes the grid’s claim to originality, pointing out in “Grids” how the employment of the grid in Modernist work was proceeded by the use of the grid “in symbolist art in the form of windows”5 and that “the symbolist interest in windows clearly reaches back into the early nineteenth century and romanticism.”6 Therefore, if we are to connect gridded Modernist paintings from the early twentieth century within the long trajectory of painted works that have employed the grid within them, then perhaps one would not be amiss in suggesting that these works do not exist outside of the realm of influence.

Though artist Dionne Simpson is producing work at a much later point in time that the reign of High Modernism in art, her prac- tice is, in some sense, very much connected to the visual tropes of that period. The paintings within her oeuvre incorporate 20 elements of collage and they too also explore employ grids. Yet this is where much of the similarity ends. Simpson’s deploy- ment of the grid in her practice extends it beyond acting as a

Walking Man, Cell#15 (detail), 2002, mixed media, 94.5” x 24.5” device that merely affords formal exploration. Instead, it forms a year of her life thus far. Aesthetically, Under Construction differs platform from which the artist can address the overlapping inter- from her other works in that several of the canvases feature sections of painting and architecture, social mapping and the renderings of Simpson herself, a marked contrast from other cultural geographies of cities, the anonymity of urban spaces as works that depict either urban landscapes featuring buildings, well as constructs of race, class and gender. public transportation or anonymous figures. Simpson’s self-por- traits feature the artist in Victorian costume and the images are The artist’s use of the grid subtly draws attention to the ways in created using unlikely materials such as liquid paper, hair dye, which its very existence mediates discourses of commerce and food colouring and Jamaican soil which have been applied with trade, natural and built environments, and social constructs. cotton swabs. Simpson’s use of the grid is multifarious. The artist often begins a work by delineating the canvas, de-weaving and removing The works that comprise Under Construction thus far pointedly threads so that the structure which is already a grid becomes a challenge the underpinnings of High Modernism. They break series of myriad grids. In turn, these grids form a series of cells with the taboo of shunning language, incorporating text into that punctuate the surface of the canvas destabilizing the once many of the works; they directly address history and the realities taught structures. These cells are then reinforced by the addition of race and racial discrimination, they collectively speak to of a material such as wax and Simpson often inserts facsimiles of events and corporeal realities that exist outside of and beyond photocopied and reduced corporate logos into them. Overlaid the picture plane. With the exception of one untouched canvas, imagery is then applied to the surface in a manner that further all of the works bear the trace of the artist’s hand. The work references the supports either in subject matter (such as the Under Construction #1, features an outline of the artist’s face. windowed wall of a skyscraper) or blocks of colour are applied Her hair is parted and styled in an Afro, half of which has been and arranged so that they reveal the underlying structures of filled in by black patterning that resembles the patterns on West- city grids. African traditional cloth. The canvas directly above and to the left of the subject’s face is filled in with white letters that bring Simpson’s latest series, Under Construction, marks something of a forth the associations between blackness and the abject. Another 22 departure for the artist. Though eleven canvases have been work, Under Construction #4, features an image that focuses on a 23 produced at this point she intends to expand the series so that black outline of the artist’s face that is overlaid by black letters eventually it will include thirty-seven works, each one denoting a that detail an account of slavery in Virginia. Both of the images Under Construction #7, 2010, delineated canvas, ash, clothing dye, text, 40” x 40” Under Construction #9, 2010, delineated canvas, Jamaican soil, ash, clothing, dye, gesso detail how speech acts and language render black subjects as and Modernity. In its pursuit of originality and emphasis on abject7 (a fact that is underscored in the words appearing both non-representational subject matter, High Modernism’s narra- over and around the subject’s face). tives led to an obfuscation of the historical precedents and reali- ties that underpinned Modernism. Simpson’s works suggests that The motif of the west-African cloth has appeared before not only does she as a contemporary (black) subject have a direct in Simpson’s work and although it marks the artist’s ties to her and (ongoing) relationship to Modernisms’ long and varied continent of origin as a member of the African diaspora, here it history but that Modernism has had an engaged and ongoing appears in tension with the Victorian costume worn by the relationship with blackness as well. subject. The cloth calls forth notions of a pre-colonial Africa while simultaneously raising the issue of the violence of imperi- Looking at the blank canvases of Under Construction #10 and alism that the continent was subjected to that served to benefit Under Construction #8, we are presented with both an untouched Victorian England (as well as the binary that was constructed canvas as well as one that has been delineated. Of the eleven between the African works that were said to inspire many works that comprise this series, they present us with the most Modernist artists but were ultimately excluded from participat- obvious links to their Modernist oeuvre of paintings of the twen- ing in Modernist discourse)8. The soil within the work acts a point tieth century. Yet to be fully transformed under Simpson’s hand, of intersection between the two represented cultures as well as the instability of Under Construction #8 reminds us of just how acting as a referent for Jamaica (the place of Simpson’s birth). inadequate or limited that High Modernism’s discourses of pure The soil (while acting as a referent of both nature and the act of formalism has been in their collective dismissal and/or denial of sullying) also works with the trope of the cloth and the Victorian history and all of its muddled and complicated realities. Though costume to bring forth issues of labour, as the intensive and time- the issues raised by the (now) overt images present in the Under consuming practices of weaving, sewing and tilling soil are Construction will ultimately be obscured with overlaid with brought to mind. Simpson’s incorporation of these specific imagery by the artist, their presence will not, and cannot be, elements into this body of work address not only the artist’s completely obliterated as Simpson has already destabilized and complicated relationships with them (i.e. her relationship to loosened the overarching hold of the myths of Modernism. 26 Victorian fashion and Western art history as a black subject) but 27 more importantly they assert the ties between blackness Sally Frater 1 Rosalind E. Kraus,“The Originality of the Avant-Garde” in The Originality of the Avant-Garde and other Modernist Myths (Cambridge: MIT Press,1985)158.

2 Ibid, 158. 3 Ibid, 156.

4 Ibid, 158. Kraus writes of how the grid in Modernist painting supposedly exist- ed outside of language stating that “The grid promotes this silence, express- ing it as a refusal of speech. The absolute stasis of the grid, its lack of hierar- chy, of centre, of inflection, emphasizes not only its anti-referential character, but – more importantly – its hostility to narrative. This structure...will not per- mit the projection of language into the domain of the visual, and the result is silence.

5 Rosiland E. Kraus, “Grids” in The Originality of the Avant-Garde and other Modernist Myths (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985) 16.

6 Kraus, 16.

7 Long before the establishment of a visual index of representations that marked black physiognomy and culture as abject, written words and verbal speech acts coded blackness as a threatening “other”. Numerous theorists from Frantz Fanon to bell hooks have noted that the (Western) linguistic demarcation and equation of blackness as that which is negative has served as the justification for the collective disenfranchisement of black subjects throughout history. See Frantz Fanon, White Skin, Black Masks, (New York: Grove Press, 1967) 188-189 and bell hooks, “Sexism and the Black Female Slave Experience” in Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, (Boston: South End Press: 1981) 33.

8 28 For a discussion of how Blackness is posited as being antithetical to Modernity see Cecil Foster, Blackness and Modernity (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press: 2007).

Under Construction #3, 2010, delineated canvas, Jamaican soil, ash, clothing dye, liquid paper Under Construction #5, 2010, delineated canvas, found images, hair colour, charcoal, 40” x 40” Under Construction #6, 2010, delineated canvas, Jamaican soil, ash, clothing dye, gesso Under Construction #4, 2010, delineated canvas, clothing dye, text, 40” x 40” Under Construction #4 (detail) Dionne Simpson

Education 2000 Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto 1998 The Cooper Union for Advancement of Art and Science, New York 2007 Juror – Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition 2005 Juror – Junction West Toronto Rail Path - artist selection panel 2005 Juror – Toronto Art Council – Visual emerging arts grant 2005 Juror – Canada Art Council – Visual emerging arts grant 2002 – 2005 Volunteer art instructor at Baycrest Elementary School

Solo Exhibitions 2010 Galerie Bourbon-Lally, Haiti 2009 Art Firm, Alberta, Canada 2007 Moore Gallery, Toronto, Canada 2007 Art Interiors, Toronto, Canada 2006 Art Gallery of Peel, Ontario, Canada 2006 The Latcham Gallery, Ontario, Canada 2003 Department of Canadian Heritage, Ontario, Canada 2003 Roy Thompson Hall, Ontario, Canada 2003 Kabat-Wrobel Gallery, Ontario, Canada 2002 Artcore Gallery, Ontario, Canada 2001 Harry Rosen, Ontario, Canada 2000 A.W.O.L. Gallery, Ontario, Canada 2000 Gallery 401, Ontario, Canada 2000 The Cultural Foundation of Corsica, France 2000 Visual Art Centre In Clarington, Ontario, Canada 1999 Cooper Union Gallery, New York, U.S.A.

Group Exhibitions 2008 Aakriti Art Gallery, Kolkata, India 2008 Summertide, Art Firm, Alberta, Canada 35 2007 Kabat - Wrobel Gallery, Dubai 2007 Art Firm, Alberta, Canada 2006 Bjornson Kajiwara Gallery, British Columbia, Canada 2006 DPM arte contemporanea, Miami, U.S.A. Under Construction #2, 2010, delineated canvas, found images, ink, liquid paper, 40” x 40” 2006 Hot, Hot, Hot Young Painters, Pouch Cove Foundation, Newfoundland, Canada 2004 Salon du Printemps- Galerie Bourbon-Lally, Montreal, Quebec 2006 ‘I Represent’ A Space Gallery, Ontario, Canada 2003 Toronto Art Expo - Ontario, Canada 2006 The Fredrick Horseman Varley Gallery, Ontario, Canada 2002 Artissima – Artcore Gallery, Torino, Italy 2006 Peter and Paul Fortress State Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia 2002 Art Cologne – Artcore Gallery, Cologne, Germany 2005 Kabat-Wrobel Gallery, Ontario, Canada 2001 Toronto International Art Fair – Artcore Gallery, Ontario, Canada 2005 Art Gallery of Peel, Ontario, Canada 2005 The Art Gallery of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada Selected Bibliography 2004 Latitudes 2004 Art Contemporain, Paris, France 2006 Catalogue – Art Gallery of Peel 2004 Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art – Finalist - New Canadian Painting Prize 2006 Art Amid the Rubble, by Carey Lovelace - Ontario, Canada 2006 Heterogenesis: Concerning the 9th Annual Biennial 2004 McMaster Museum of Art – Semi-finalist – New Canadian Painting Prize 2005 The Globe and Mail – Sat. 23 April 2005, Globe Review sec R12, - Ontario, Canada Gary Michael Dault, “Years spent on a single painting.” 2004 New Brunswick Museum – Semi-finalist – New Canadian Painting Prize 2005 The Globe and Mail – Mon 21 Feb. 2005, Globe Review sec R, Sarah Milroy. - St. John, Canada “Subjugation and illumination.” 2004 The Edmonton Art Gallery – Semi-finalist – New Canadian Painting Prize 2005 The Liberty Gleaner – Jan. / Feb. 2005, page 10, Peter Armstrong, - Alberta, Canada “Culture and conflict win for artist.” 2004 Kabat-Wrobel Gallery, Ontario, Canada 2005 The Village Gleaner – Jan. / Feb. 2005, page 12, Peter Armstrong, 2003 The Fredrick Horseman Varley Gallery, Ontario, Canada “Culture and conflict win for artist.” 2002 The Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario, Canada 2004 Now - HYPERLINK “http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2004-11-18/art_reviews.php” 2002 The Fredrick Horseman Varley Gallery, Ontario, Canada http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2004-11-18/art_reviews.php 2001 a_level, Ontario, Canada 2004 National Post – Thu. 18 Nov. 2005, Entertainment and Culture AL6, 2001 Cedar Ridge Studio Gallery, Ontario, Canada Julia Dault and J. Kelly Nestruck, “Brush Strokes of What to Come.” 2000 Women’s Art Association of Canada, Ontario, Canada 2004 Tribune (Welland) – Thu. 18 Nov. Page: C2, Section: Entertainment 2004 CP Wire - Wed 17 Nov., Section: Entertainment and culture Art Fairs 2004 Catalogue – Art Gallery of Peel 2008 Arte America - Galerie Bourbon-Lally, Miami, U.S.A 2004 Catalogue – Latitudes 2004 2008 National Black Fine Art Show (2004 - present) - Galerie Bourbon-Lally, 2004 Catalogue – AAF Contemporary Art Fair New York, U.S.A 2004 Catalogue – Salon du Printemps de Montreal 2004 2007 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition (2000 – present) - Ontario, Canada 2001 Corse-Matin: L’art contemporian s’insere en corse 2006 National Biennial Exhibition – Kingston, Jamaica 2001 Lola – Volume 9, “Suits Playing Games series at A.W.O.L Gallery.” 2006 Toronto International Art Fair – Bjornson Kajiwara Gallery, Vancouver, Canada 2001 Surface and Symbol – Contemporary Art 2001: “Profile of an artist as a young woman.” 36 37 2006 AAF Contemporary Art Fair (2004 - present) - Galerie Bourbon-Lally, New York, U.S.A 2000 North York Mirror – Arts and Entertainment: “Artist examines identity issues.” 2006 9th Havana Biennial - Cuba 2000 North York Mirror – Arts and Entertainment: “Business suit inspires art work.” 2005 Off the Main (also 2004) - Galerie Bourbon-Lally, New York, U.S.A. 1999 C.F.M.T., “John Scott interviewing Dionne Simpson on her ‘Designing a Culture’ series.” 2005 Affordable Art Fair (also 2004) - Galerie Bourbon-Lally, New York, U.S.A. 1999 Rolling Stone Magazine. “Interviews artists at Cooper Union in New York.” Selected Grants and Awards 2003 Power of Expression Art Auction (also 2002), Toronto – Ontario 2008 Grant – Toronto Art Council – Mid-career Artist 2001 Agnes Etherington Art Centre Art Auction, Kingston – Ontario 2008 Public Collection – MacDonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph - Ontario 2001 Millennium Art Auction, Sunny Brook Hospital, Toronto - Ontario 2007 Public Collection – El Barrio Museum Gallery Representation 2007 Nomination – Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Award ArtFirm – Calgary 2006 Public Collection – Peel Gallery - Canada Art Interiors – Toronto 2006 Grant – Canada Council for the Arts – Project Grant DPM Arte Contemporanea – Miami / Ecuador 2006 Grant – Ontario Art Council – Emerging Artist Galerie Bourbon-Lally – International Art Fairs 2004 Grant – Canada Council for the Arts – Travel Grant 2004 Public Collection – RBC Financial Group 2004 Grant – Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade – Exhibition Assistance 2004 Grant – Ontario Art Council – Exhibition Assistance 2004 First Place Award - RBC New Canadian Painting Competition (National Winner) 2004 Public Collection – Paradigm Investment – Canada 2003 Award – The Power of Expression Award of Excellence 2003 First Place Award – The Creative Vision – The Fredrick Horseman Varley Art Gallery – also awarded in 2002 2003 Grant – Ontario Art Council – Emerging Artist 2003 Grant – Toronto Art Council – Emerging Artist 2003 Public Collection – Apple Canada Inc. 2003 Public Collection – CIBC Wood Gundy - Canada 2003 Public Collection – Sunlife Insurance - Canada 2003 Public Collection – Agnes Etherington Art Centre - Canada 2001 Public Collection – Cultural Foundation in Corsica, 2001 Award – Kathryn Minard Mixed Media Award – Toronto Outdoor Exhibition 1999 Scholarship – Women Art Association of Canada 1999 Award – Arts Week 1999 Commission – Playdium Entertainment Corporation

Charity Auctions and Donations 38 2007 Whodunit Mystery Art Auction (2004 – present), Toronto - Ontario 39 2006 Art with Heart, Auction for Casey House (also 2005), Toronto - Ontario 2005 Latin American Art Auction, Miami - Florida 2005 Canadian Art Gallery Hop, Toronto - Ontario Exhibit A (suit), 2004 Exhibit B (smoker), 2004 Mixed media, 20” x 20” Mixed media, 24” x 48” front + back cover: Under Construction #10 (detail), 2010, Cotton canvas, 40” x 40” inside cover (front + back): Urban Decay #1 (detail), 2009, Mixed media, 20” x 20” pages 1, 10, 19: Under Construction #8 (detail), 2010, Delineated canvas, 40” x 40”