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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 (detail) Urban Decay #1, 2009, mixed media, 20 x 20
8
Over the past decade of her art practice, Dionne Simpson
has continuously built on past histories to create new stories.
The histories are not only her own experiences but they
reach into the distant past for technique as well as metaphor.
Her work is very much about surface but we soon see that
there is more behind the first reading. Layer upon layer of
meaning exist in this work.
Like reading a map, one can locate a particular fixed point
of attention or one can choose to explore the topography,
the paths and obstacles to truly understand the nature of
the environment. It is this sense of way-finding that both
curators of the exhibition respond to in their essays. Curator,
Pam Edmonds refers to Simpsons work as conceptual mapping.
9
Guest curator, Sally Frater continues deeper in this concept
in deciphering the use of the grid as applied to surface;
systems of measuring and qualifying location and value
apply here.
The exhibition and catalogue title Cartographies become,
significantly appropriate when one considers the concepts it
embraces and refers to, each meaning heavy with metaphor
and context. It is a word rich with implicit intention and is a
fitting descriptor for this body of work.
There are many who have made this catalogue possible.
We would like to thank the curators of the exhibition,
Pam Edmonds and Sally Frater who brought this intriguing
exhibition to the Art Gallery of Peterborough. Thanks goes
to Tariq Sami for his sensitivity to the nature of Simpsons
work, which is reflected in his inspired catalogue design.
Last, but not least, we thank artist, Dionne Simpson for
her fine work and generous contribution to the success of
the exhibition.
d r o w e r o f
Celeste Scopelites
D i r e c t o r
11
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
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
space, subjectivity and power. Here, the map can be viewed as a
conceptual tool to experiment with a particular territory in
specific ways in order to reach unforeseen destinations. Mapping
quite simply becomes a medium for expressing the artists own
observations and reflections about the contemporary world.
i t n
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i t
c u d o r
Pamela Edmonds
13
This exhibition came together as a result of the mutual admira-
tion of Simpsons oeuvre with Hamilton-based independent
curator Sally Frater. As curators who are similarly interested in
contemporary art that engages questions of modernity and iden-
tity politics, Cartographies explores global modernity and identity
as fluid and continually unfolding, bringing the post-colonial and
post-modern into dialogue. Simpsons multi-layered paintings
are conceptual maps to be deciphered and explored. The reward
is the infinitely varied journeys they take us on.
Pamela Edmonds
Art Gallery of Peterborough
12
For over a decade, artist Dionne Simpson has explored the sites
and spaces of cultural urbanization through her distinctive visual
practice. Employing the materiality of cotton canvas as a
metaphor for the underlying fabric of Canadian society, Simpson
has built an international career based on her unique works
which are created through a painstaking process inspired by the
West African art of thread pulling-the removal of thread from
material in order to create patterns and images. Her latest series
is highly personal form of Pointillism depicting anonymous
urban landscapes as well as a series of self-portraits that pulsate
behind the exposed grids of the de-woven fabric. In these mixed-
media paintings, Simpson applies an unorthodox assortment of
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 artists 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 citys inhabitants. Through subtraction and addition, the
work strikes an intriguing balance between the contemporary
and traditional as well as between abstraction and realism.
Not only does Simpson construct and deconstruct her own
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
19
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 grids existence as a cornerstone of
non-representational art gave rise to the (fictitious) notion that
this new kind of art was truly original (irrespective of the fact
that this claims potency was diminished each time that it was
employed by yet another artist or was used in succession within
a particular artists practice). Positioned as it was the grids potency
lay in the fact that due to the emphasis on what lay on its
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
in the world at large and that there was no linguistic terminology
that could adequately describe it
4
. As such, these works existed
outside of history. The discourse that was then created to discuss
M d o m
s i n r e
R ) e (
g n
i c a
f r u S
Sally Frater
20
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 grids
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
elements of collage and they too also explore employ grids.
Yet this is where much of the similarity ends. Simpsons 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
22
device that merely affords formal exploration. Instead, it forms a
platform from which the artist can address the overlapping inter-
sections of painting and architecture, social mapping and the
cultural geographies of cities, the anonymity of urban spaces as
well as constructs of race, class and gender.
The artists use of the grid subtly draws attention to the ways in
which its very existence mediates discourses of commerce and
trade, natural and built environments, and social constructs.
Simpsons use of the grid is multifarious. The artist often begins
a work by delineating the canvas, de-weaving and removing
threads so that the structure which is already a grid becomes a
series of myriad grids. In turn, these grids form a series of cells
that punctuate the surface of the canvas destabilizing the once
taught structures. These cells are then reinforced by the addition
of a material such as wax and Simpson often inserts facsimiles of
photocopied and reduced corporate logos into them. Overlaid
imagery is then applied to the surface in a manner that further
references the supports either in subject matter (such as the
windowed wall of a skyscraper) or blocks of colour are applied
and arranged so that they reveal the underlying structures of
city grids.
Simpsons latest series, Under Construction, marks something of a
departure for the artist. Though eleven canvases have been
produced at this point she intends to expand the series so that
eventually it will include thirty-seven works, each one denoting a
23
year of her life thus far. Aesthetically, Under Construction differs
from her other works in that several of the canvases feature
renderings of Simpson herself, a marked contrast from other
works that depict either urban landscapes featuring buildings,
public transportation or anonymous figures. Simpsons self-por-
traits feature the artist in Victorian costume and the images are
created using unlikely materials such as liquid paper, hair dye,
food colouring and Jamaican soil which have been applied with
cotton swabs.
The works that comprise Under Construction thus far pointedly
challenge the underpinnings of High Modernism. They break
with the taboo of shunning language, incorporating text into
many of the works; they directly address history and the realities
of race and racial discrimination, they collectively speak to
events and corporeal realities that exist outside of and beyond
the picture plane. With the exception of one untouched canvas,
all of the works bear the trace of the artists hand. The work
Under Construction #1, features an outline of the artists face.
Her hair is parted and styled in an Afro, half of which has been
filled in by black patterning that resembles the patterns on West-
African traditional cloth. The canvas directly above and to the
left of the subjects face is filled in with white letters that bring
forth the associations between blackness and the abject. Another
work, Under Construction #4, features an image that focuses on a
black outline of the artists face that is overlaid by black letters
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
27
and Modernity. In its pursuit of originality and emphasis on
non-representational subject matter, High Modernisms narra-
tives led to an obfuscation of the historical precedents and reali-
ties that underpinned Modernism. Simpsons works suggests that
not only does she as a contemporary (black) subject have a direct
and (ongoing) relationship to Modernisms long and varied
history but that Modernism has had an engaged and ongoing
relationship with blackness as well.
Looking at the blank canvases of Under Construction #10 and
Under Construction #8, we are presented with both an untouched
canvas as well as one that has been delineated. Of the eleven
works that comprise this series, they present us with the most
obvious links to their Modernist oeuvre of paintings of the twen-
tieth century. Yet to be fully transformed under Simpsons hand,
the instability of Under Construction #8 reminds us of just how
inadequate or limited that High Modernisms discourses of pure
formalism has been in their collective dismissal and/or denial of
history and all of its muddled and complicated realities. Though
the issues raised by the (now) overt images present in the Under
Construction will ultimately be obscured with overlaid with
imagery by the artist, their presence will not, and cannot be,
completely obliterated as Simpson has already destabilized and
loosened the overarching hold of the myths of Modernism.
Sally Frater
26
detail how speech acts and language render black subjects as
abject
7
(a fact that is underscored in the words appearing both
over and around the subjects face).
The motif of the west-African cloth has appeared before
in Simpsons work and although it marks the artists ties to her
continent of origin as a member of the African diaspora, here it
appears in tension with the Victorian costume worn by the
subject. The cloth calls forth notions of a pre-colonial Africa
while simultaneously raising the issue of the violence of imperi-
alism that the continent was subjected to that served to benefit
Victorian England (as well as the binary that was constructed
between the African works that were said to inspire many
Modernist artists but were ultimately excluded from participat-
ing in Modernist discourse)
8
. The soil within the work acts a point
of intersection between the two represented cultures as well as
acting as a referent for Jamaica (the place of Simpsons birth).
The soil (while acting as a referent of both nature and the act of
sullying) also works with the trope of the cloth and the Victorian
costume to bring forth issues of labour, as the intensive and time-
consuming practices of weaving, sewing and tilling soil are
brought to mind. Simpsons incorporation of these specific
elements into this body of work address not only the artists
complicated relationships with them (i.e. her relationship to
Victorian fashion and Western art history as a black subject) but
more importantly they assert the ties between blackness
Under Construction #3, 2010, delineated canvas, Jamaican soil, ash, clothing dye, liquid paper
28
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 Aint I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, (Boston:
South End Press: 1981) 33.
8
For a discussion of how Blackness is posited as being antithetical to Modernity
see Cecil Foster, Blackness and Modernity (Montreal: McGill-Queens
University Press: 2007).
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)
35
Di onne Si mps on
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
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
37
2004 Salon du Printemps- Galerie Bourbon-Lally, Montreal, Quebec
2003 Toronto Art Expo - Ontario, Canada
2002 Artissima Artcore Gallery, Torino, Italy
2002 Art Cologne Artcore Gallery, Cologne, Germany
2001 Toronto International Art Fair Artcore Gallery, Ontario, Canada
Selected Bibliography
2006 Catalogue Art Gallery of Peel
2006 Art Amid the Rubble, by Carey Lovelace
2006 Heterogenesis: Concerning the 9th Annual Biennial
2005 The Globe and Mail Sat. 23 April 2005, Globe Review sec R12,
Gary Michael Dault, Years spent on a single painting.
2005 The Globe and Mail Mon 21 Feb. 2005, Globe Review sec R, Sarah Milroy.
Subjugation and illumination.
2005 The Liberty Gleaner Jan. / Feb. 2005, page 10, Peter Armstrong,
Culture and conflict win for artist.
2005 The Village Gleaner Jan. / Feb. 2005, page 12, Peter Armstrong,
Culture and conflict win for artist.
2004 Now - HYPERLINK http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2004-11-18/art_reviews.php
http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2004-11-18/art_reviews.php
2004 National Post Thu. 18 Nov. 2005, Entertainment and Culture AL6,
Julia Dault and J. Kelly Nestruck, Brush Strokes of What to Come.
2004 Tribune (Welland) Thu. 18 Nov. Page: C2, Section: Entertainment
2004 CP Wire - Wed 17 Nov., Section: Entertainment and culture
2004 Catalogue Art Gallery of Peel
2004 Catalogue Latitudes 2004
2004 Catalogue AAF Contemporary Art Fair
2004 Catalogue Salon du Printemps de Montreal 2004
2001 Corse-Matin: Lart contemporian sinsere en corse
2001 Lola Volume 9, Suits Playing Games series at A.W.O.L Gallery.
2001 Surface and Symbol Contemporary Art 2001: Profile of an artist as a young woman.
2000 North York Mirror Arts and Entertainment: Artist examines identity issues.
2000 North York Mirror Arts and Entertainment: Business suit inspires art work.
1999 C.F.M.T., John Scott interviewing Dionne Simpson on her Designing a Culture series.
1999 Rolling Stone Magazine. Interviews artists at Cooper Union in New York.
36
2006 Hot, Hot, Hot Young Painters, Pouch Cove Foundation, Newfoundland, Canada
2006 I Represent A Space Gallery, Ontario, Canada
2006 The Fredrick Horseman Varley Gallery, Ontario, Canada
2006 Peter and Paul Fortress State Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
2005 Kabat-Wrobel Gallery, Ontario, Canada
2005 Art Gallery of Peel, Ontario, Canada
2005 The Art Gallery of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
2004 Latitudes 2004 Art Contemporain, Paris, France
2004 Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art Finalist - New Canadian Painting Prize
- Ontario, Canada
2004 McMaster Museum of Art Semi-finalist New Canadian Painting Prize
- Ontario, Canada
2004 New Brunswick Museum Semi-finalist New Canadian Painting Prize
- St. John, Canada
2004 The Edmonton Art Gallery Semi-finalist New Canadian Painting Prize
- Alberta, Canada
2004 Kabat-Wrobel Gallery, Ontario, Canada
2003 The Fredrick Horseman Varley Gallery, Ontario, Canada
2002 The Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario, Canada
2002 The Fredrick Horseman Varley Gallery, Ontario, Canada
2001 a_level, Ontario, Canada
2001 Cedar Ridge Studio Gallery, Ontario, Canada
2000 Womens Art Association of Canada, Ontario, Canada
Art Fairs
2008 Arte America - Galerie Bourbon-Lally, Miami, U.S.A
2008 National Black Fine Art Show (2004 - present) - Galerie Bourbon-Lally,
New York, U.S.A
2007 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition (2000 present) - Ontario, Canada
2006 National Biennial Exhibition Kingston, Jamaica
2006 Toronto International Art Fair Bjornson Kajiwara Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
2006 AAF Contemporary Art Fair (2004 - present) - Galerie Bourbon-Lally, New York, U.S.A
2006 9
th
Havana Biennial - Cuba
2005 Off the Main (also 2004) - Galerie Bourbon-Lally, New York, U.S.A.
2005 Affordable Art Fair (also 2004) - Galerie Bourbon-Lally, New York, U.S.A.
39
2003 Power of Expression Art Auction (also 2002), Toronto Ontario
2001 Agnes Etherington Art Centre Art Auction, Kingston Ontario
2001 Millennium Art Auction, Sunny Brook Hospital, Toronto - Ontario
Gallery Representation
ArtFirm Calgary
Art Interiors Toronto
DPM Arte Contemporanea Miami / Ecuador
Galerie Bourbon-Lally International Art Fairs
38
Selected Grants and Awards
2008 Grant Toronto Art Council Mid-career Artist
2008 Public Collection MacDonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph - Ontario
2007 Public Collection El Barrio Museum
2007 Nomination Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Award
2006 Public Collection Peel Gallery - Canada
2006 Grant Canada Council for the Arts Project Grant
2006 Grant Ontario Art Council Emerging Artist
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
2007 Whodunit Mystery Art Auction (2004 present), Toronto - Ontario
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
Mixed media, 20 x 20
Exhibit B (smoker), 2004
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