Deep Looking, Looking Deep

An initial review of the works i choose for deep looking.

Seeing work in a gallery, out of the studio, allows a more dispassionate assessment.  The pain of birthing, the struggle of making has dissipated and the pieces reveal themselves more fully.

Concatenation (2023), Etchings on paper, hammered steel, wire

Cube I, print on paper and plaster (2024)

Seeing my work displayed alongside Dawn Langley’s delicately observed photographs and Janet McWilliam’s bold painting, brought previously unseen or overlooked elements into focus - new avenues to explore perhaps?I chose to exhibit a selection of work made over a period time.  Seeing pieces alongside each other was

the perfect opportunity to reflect, to examine the cohesive thread which runs through the pieces and equally to reflect on the asides which merit further investigation, or not. It is always intriguing to see how each work holds the seed of the next, ideas tumbling along, never stagnating, offering new perspectives.

Some of my work shown in Deep Looking in The Art Fund Gallery, The Lightbox, Woking

Seeing my work displayed alongside Dawn Langley’s delicately observed photographs and Janet McWilliam’s bold painting brought previously unseen or overlooked elements into focus - new avenues to explore perhaps?

Consuelo Simpson is an artist and maker living and working in Hampshire. Her multidisciplinary practice is focused on seeking moments of enchantment and on reaching an accommodation with the world.

She remains obsessed with string!

Deep Looking, The Art Fund Gallery, The Lightbox

A Three woman show featuring a painter, a photographer and a printmaker

Deep Looking, with Dawn Langley, Janet McWilliam and me, was our first joint exhibition: a roller coaster ride which was nerve wracking, a lot of fun and from which we learned about working together and about how well our very different practices come together to produce a cohesive show.

Consuelo Simpson, etchings, linen thread, wire

Gallery view: Consuelo Simpson (sculptures), Dawn Langley (photography), Janet McWilliam (painting)

Our practices and outcomes are very different but the hang went very smoothly and the works all sat comfortably in the space and with each other.

We are so delighted with the responses from visitors to our first joint venture that we talking about another exhibiting adventure. Hooray!

Visitors to our Meet the Artists session

It has been a pleasure to put our work out into the world and to spend time with it in a lovely gallery and with each other. Connections, hitherto unseen, have sparked conversations and hold the kernels of future work.

Consuelo Simpson is an artist and maker living and working in Hampshire. Her multidisciplinary practice is focused on seeking moments of enchantment and on reaching an accommodation with the world.

She remains obsessed with string!

MARINA ABRAMOVIC AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY, LONDON 2023

MEMORABLE, VIOLENT, DISTURBING, SOME EXHIBITIONS STAY WITH YOU.The first retrospective of a woman artist to be held at The Royal Academy HAD IT ALL.

Pain

Anger

Danger

Fear

Self harm

Brutality

Grief

Loss

Endurance

Courage

Sorrow

Acceptance

Beauty

Joy

Peace

Visitors were invited to walk through the arch.

Balkan Baroque

The pile of beef bones at the Royal Academy, recreating the original work first shown at the Venice Biennale in 1997, was fake - a concession to modern sensibilities, to hygiene or to Health and Safety regulations? Less smelly, bur undoubtably a disappointing substitution.

The exhibition documents Abramović’s best performances, on film and as re-enactments.  Throughout the early part of my visit to the exhibition, I felt in a contest of endurance in thrall to the force of the artist’s huge personality and unrelenting drive. I felt almost crushed moving from room to room. The danger and the pain were like nothing I had experienced in an exhibition before. The artist was most definitely present, even through the medium of video and re-enactment. There was palpable relief in the audience as we progressed through to Abramović’s newer work. This is less intense, more New Age which comes almost as a relief, though on reflection it is, in parts, disappointingly bland. In the moment, it allows a gentle winding down between the intensity of Abramović at her very best and being spat out into the commercial glare of the exhibition shop.

A very personal review of my visit to one of the most powerful exhibitions I have seen. The courage shown by the artist is my foremost memory.

Consuelo Simpson is an artist and maker living and working in Hampshire. Her multidisciplinary practice is focused on seeking moments of enchantment and on reaching an accommodation with the world. She remains obsessed with string.