The piece feels like a convergence between two cultures long at odds - if not quite a gesture of reconciliation, then surely one of equivalence, universal and uniting. Both are scored with patterns and symbols that could as easily be stolen from a far-flung future as an ancient past. The mother figure wears a steel headdress and stands on a metal box. But Simpson’s version registers as timeless, something that both predates the Christian reference and feels destined to outlast it. Go ahead, take the bait - that’s why it’s there. At the core of the display stands “Genesis Squared,” from 2019, a mother and infant with echoes of the classic “Madonna and child” images from countless European traditions. (Photo by Mel Taing) Mel TaingĪll is far from doom and gloom here, though. Simpson: Legacies," the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, 2022-2023. Simpson, "Storyteller," 2021, "Genesis Squared" (detail), 2019, and "Brace," 2022, in "Rose B. In a valley cradled by the Berkshire hills, 12 cast-concrete figures made to look like clay (outdoor works need to be weatherproof) stand like sentinels strikingly, eyeholes carved through to the backs of their heads allow light to stream through.įrom left: Rose B. The round void where its neck would be invites your gaze and frames your view - looking at it means looking through it, a gateway to the ideas that lie within.Īt Simpson’s current installation at Field Farm, a Trustees of Reservations property in Williamstown, you can see the same idea at work. Whatever else it might evoke, the piece, “Root A,” 2019, is beautiful, seductive, brimming with intimate markers: Strips of leather wound around its thighs fasten slender clay fragments in place, a string of wooden beads dangle from its belt.
Like so much of Simpson’s work, any implied violence is softened with solemnity, steadfastness, care. With that image in mind, you might be tempted to just go with “apocalyptic,” a “Mad Max”-like vision primed for the Thunderdome.