Jane Simpson (artist)

Last updated

Jane Simpson (born 1965) is a British artist who lives and works in Carmarthenshire. She primarily produces sculptures, using diverse elements such as ice, silicone rubber, wood, precious metals, glass, ceramics and household objects including items bought at flea markets and on eBay. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Simpson was born in Swansea, Wales. She graduated from the Chelsea School of Art in London in 1988 and earned an MFA from the Royal Academy of Art in London in 1993. In 1994 she was included in the seminal exhibition Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away, curated by Damien Hirst, at the Serpentine Gallery, London. Simpson's work was also part of the controversial Sensation exhibition of 1997. [2] [3]

Artwork and career

Simpson is well known for her sculptures, which involve various materials, from rubber casting techniques to sewing machines connected to refrigeration units so that they become covered with a layer of frost. Regarding her work, Simpson has said "I think of it as a marriage of two different technologies." [4]

Simpson is also the current production manager of a portfolio of prints called House of Fairy Tales, which includes work by Dexter Dalwood, Cornelia Parker, Sir Peter Blake and Gavin Turk.

In 2014 Simpson returned to live in Swansea and opened an art gallery in the city. [5]

Notable exhibitions and collections

Recent solo exhibitions include: A Three Way Conversation with Myself at the New Art Centre, Roche Court, Wiltshire (2005); “Tableau at CAC Malaga (2004); and Somewhere (between freezing and melting) there lies passion at both Galería Javier López, Madrid and Sandra Gering Gallery, New York (2004). Recent group exhibitions include kissingcousins curated by Jane Simpson and Sarah Staton at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2007); Weather Report (Art and Climate Change) at the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Canary Islands (2007); and the Valencia Biennale (2005). [ citation needed ]

Simpson's work is part of many public and private collections including the Arts Council of England, Damien Hirst's Murderme Collection, the British Council and the Colección Ciudad de Pamplona. [6] [7] Four of her works were in the Saatchi Collection. [8] In 2000, the Tate purchased her piece Sunset Still Life, a color inkjet print of a photograph of a modern still life composed of Tupperware and plastic cups. Her lithograph Swiss Cottage was also purchased by the Tate in 2008. [9] [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Young British Artists</span> Loose group of visual artists

The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, in the late 1980s, whereas some from the group had trained at Royal College of Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Davenport (artist)</span> English artist

Ian Davenport is an English abstract painter and former Turner Prize nominee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Quinn</span> British painter and sculptor

Marc Quinn is a British contemporary visual artist whose work includes sculpture, installation, and painting. Quinn explores "what it is to be human in the world today" through subjects including the body, genetics, identity, environment, and the media. His work has used materials that vary widely, from blood, bread and flowers, to marble and stainless steel. Quinn has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Sir John Soane's Museum, the Tate Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Fondation Beyeler, Fondazione Prada, and South London Gallery. The artist was a notable member of the Young British Artists movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Damien Hirst</span> British artist (born 1965)

Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest living artist, with his wealth estimated at US$384 million in the 2020 Sunday Times Rich List. During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saatchi Gallery</span> Physical and online contemporary art museum in Chelsea, London

The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the Damien Hirst-led Young British Artists, followed by shows purely of painting, led to Saatchi Gallery becoming a recognised authority in contemporary art globally. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank by the River Thames, and finally in Chelsea, Duke of York's HQ, its current location. In 2019 Saatchi Gallery became a registered charity and began a new chapter in its history. Recent exhibitions include the major solo exhibition of the artist JR, JR: Chronicles, and London Grads Now in September 2019 lending the gallery spaces to graduates from leading fine art schools who experienced the cancellation of physical degree shows due to the pandemic.

Sarah Lucas is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged in 1988. Her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humour by incorporating photography, sculpture, collage and found objects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The New Art Gallery Walsall</span> Art gallery in Walsall, West Midlands, England

The New Art Gallery Walsall is a modern and contemporary art gallery in the town of Walsall, in the West Midlands, England. It was built with £21 million of public funding, including £15.75 million from the UK National Lottery and additional money from the European Regional Development Fund and City Challenge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angus Fairhurst</span> English artist (1966–2008)

Angus Fairhurst was an English artist working in installation, photography and video. He was one of the Young British Artists (YBAs).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Craig-Martin</span> Irish contemporary conceptual artist and painter

Sir Michael Craig-Martin is an Irish-born contemporary conceptual artist and painter. He is known for fostering and adopting the Young British Artists, many of whom he taught, and for his conceptual artwork, An Oak Tree. He is an Emeritus Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths. His memoir and advice for the aspiring artist, On Being An Artist, was published by London-based publisher Art / Books in April 2015.

Jon Thompson was an artist, curator and academic known for his involvement in the development of the YBA artist generation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Kame Kngwarreye</span> Aboriginal Australian artist (1910–1996)

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Aboriginal Australian artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. After only starting painting as a septuagenarian, Kngwarreye became one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of Indigenous Australian art.

Adrian Searle is the chief art critic of The Guardian newspaper in Britain, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liam Gillick</span> English artist

Liam Gillick is a British artist who lives and works in New York City. Gillick deploys multiple forms to make visible the aesthetics of the constructed world and examine the ideological control systems that have emerged along with globalization and neoliberalism. He utilizes materials that resemble everyday built environments, transforming them into minimalist abstractions that deliver commentaries on social constructs, while also exploring notions of modernism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cedric Morris</span> British artist

Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea in South Wales, but worked mainly in East Anglia. As an artist he is best known for his portraits, flower paintings and landscapes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuckism International Gallery</span>

The Stuckism International Gallery was the gallery of the Stuckist art movement. It was open from 2002 to 2005 in Shoreditch, and was run by Charles Thomson, the co-founder of Stuckism. It was launched by a procession carrying a coffin marked "The death of conceptual art" to the neighbouring White Cube gallery.

<i>For the Love of God</i> 2007 sculpture by Damien Hirst

For the Love of God is a sculpture by artist Damien Hirst produced in 2007. It consists of a platinum cast of an 18th-century human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, including a pear-shaped pink diamond located in the forehead that is known as the Skull Star Diamond. The skull's teeth are original, and were purchased by Hirst in London. The artwork is a memento mori, or reminder of the mortality of the viewer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iwona Blazwick</span> British art critic

Iwona Maria Blazwick OBE is a British art critic and lecturer. She is currently the Chair of the Royal Commission for Al-'Ula’s Public Art Expert Panel. She was the Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London from 2001 to 2022. She discovered Damien Hirst and staged his first solo show at a public London art gallery, Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1992. She supports the careers of young artists.

Gregor Muir is Director of Collection, International Art, at Tate, having previously been the Executive Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London from 2011 until 2016. He was the director of Hauser & Wirth, London, at 196a Piccadilly, from 2004 - 2011. He is also the author of a 2009 memoir in which he recounts his direct experience of the YBA art scene in 1990s London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Mellis</span> British artist (1914–2009)

Margaret Nairne Mellis was a Scottish artist, one of the early members and last survivors of the group of modernist artists that gathered in St Ives, in Cornwall, in the 1940s. She and her first husband, Adrian Stokes, played an important role in the rise of St Ives as a magnet for artists. She later married Francis Davison, also an artist, and became a mentor to the young Damien Hirst.

Sandra Eileen Gering is an American gallerist, curator, and art dealer specializing in modern and contemporary art. She owned and operated commercial galleries in New York City. She is a proponent of conceptual art and interdisciplinary practices.

References

  1. Schwendener, Martha. “Jane Simpson: Gering & López Gallery.” ArtForum International May 2008: 379.
  2. Rachel Mainwaring (23 April 2016). "How artist Jane Simpson is bringing the London art world to Wales". Wales Online. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
  3. "JANE SIMPSON". GS Artists Swansea. 10 March 2017. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  4. Robinson, Walter. “Weekend Update.” ArtNet, 11 March 2008.
  5. Robert Denholm-Hall (5 June 2014). "Art gallery becomes latest tenant at £25m Swansea Urban Village". Wales Online. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
  6. "Jane Simpson | Artists | Collection | British Council − Visual Arts". visualarts.britishcouncil.org. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  7. "Sandra Gering Inc. - Jane Simpson - Works". www.sandrageringinc.com. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  8. Dingle, Robert. "The Gathering". artscouncilcollection. Archived from the original on 17 March 2010. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  9. Tate. "'Sunset Still Life', Jane Simpson, 2000". Tate. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  10. Tate. "'Swiss Cottage', Jane Simpson, 2008". Tate. Retrieved 16 February 2020.