BIOGRAPHY
Diane Simpson, born 1935, is a Chicago-based artist who for the past forty-five years has created sculptures and preparatory drawings that evolve from a diverse range of sources, including clothing, utilitarian objects, and architecture. The structures of clothing forms has continuously informed her work, serving as a vehicle for exploring their visually formal qualities, while also revealing their connections to the design and architecture of various cultures and periods in history. Her wide selection of materials (wood, perforated metals, linoleum, fabrics) reflect her interest in the coexistence of the industrial/architectonic and domestic worlds. She has exhibited widely in the US and abroad, including in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. In 2010, a thirty-year retrospective was held at the Chicago Cultural Center, and she has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. In 2019 Simpson was one of the ten recipients of the "Anonymous Was a Woman" award. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC; Art Institute of Chicago; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL; Perez Museum, Miami, FL; and the Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco and Paris, FR. She received a BFA in 1971 and an MFA in 1978 from the Art Institute of Chicago. Simpson is represented by Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago; James Cohan, NYC; and Herald St, London.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My process begins with the transformation and reinvention of a diverse range of forms that interest me. Most often my sources come from the worlds of applied arts (clothing structures, furniture, utilitarian objects and vernacular industrial architecture). The structure of clothing forms has continuously informed my work, serving as a vehicle for exploring their functional and sociological roles and the influence of the design and architecture of various cultures and periods in history.
All of my sculptures begin with specific references. The form, developed and transformed through revised drawings, may be initially informed by a child's bib, but at the same time, influenced by an Art Deco architectural detail, thereby resulting in a variety of readings. This hybrid, distilled form is finally directed by my means of construction and choice of materials. The result is an abstracted version, but often retaining a suggestion or essence of the initial source.
Architecture has had a strong influence on my work. When looking at architecture, I isolate a section of a building (a chimney, a window, a roof shape) that interests me. In the same way, I concentrate on a particular section or detail of clothing (a turn of a collar; the shape of a sleeve). I am interested in the seamless shifting from body to architectural form in the melding of the wearable with the structural un-wearable.
A parallel interest has been the play between two and three-dimensional space. Starting with my early cardboard constructions, I have been interested in applying the same tricks of pictorial illusion that I use to create volume in my drawings, to actual space (oblique parallel angles, asymmetrical orientation). As a result, the opposite happens: the three dimensional version becomes flattened. Over the years, I have continued to apply this system with selected sculptures because it presents complexities of construction that challenge me, and the asymmetrical skewed angles allow for unplanned surprises and contradictions. For example, a form may refer to a functional object but the skewed angles deny its literal interpretation.
My wide selection of materials (wood, perforated metal, linoleum, fabrics) reflects my interest in the coexistence of the industrial/architectonic and domestic worlds. My means for assembling elements (stitching, wrapping, interlocking, riveting) allows for the process to become visually apparent and an integral part of the form and structure. Details of ornamentation are direct results of the structure and reflect the inherent properties of the material used in each individual sculpture.
My process begins with the transformation and reinvention of a diverse range of forms that interest me. Most often my sources come from the worlds of applied arts (clothing structures, furniture, utilitarian objects and vernacular industrial architecture). The structure of clothing forms has continuously informed my work, serving as a vehicle for exploring their functional and sociological roles and the influence of the design and architecture of various cultures and periods in history.
All of my sculptures begin with specific references. The form, developed and transformed through revised drawings, may be initially informed by a child's bib, but at the same time, influenced by an Art Deco architectural detail, thereby resulting in a variety of readings. This hybrid, distilled form is finally directed by my means of construction and choice of materials. The result is an abstracted version, but often retaining a suggestion or essence of the initial source.
Architecture has had a strong influence on my work. When looking at architecture, I isolate a section of a building (a chimney, a window, a roof shape) that interests me. In the same way, I concentrate on a particular section or detail of clothing (a turn of a collar; the shape of a sleeve). I am interested in the seamless shifting from body to architectural form in the melding of the wearable with the structural un-wearable.
A parallel interest has been the play between two and three-dimensional space. Starting with my early cardboard constructions, I have been interested in applying the same tricks of pictorial illusion that I use to create volume in my drawings, to actual space (oblique parallel angles, asymmetrical orientation). As a result, the opposite happens: the three dimensional version becomes flattened. Over the years, I have continued to apply this system with selected sculptures because it presents complexities of construction that challenge me, and the asymmetrical skewed angles allow for unplanned surprises and contradictions. For example, a form may refer to a functional object but the skewed angles deny its literal interpretation.
My wide selection of materials (wood, perforated metal, linoleum, fabrics) reflects my interest in the coexistence of the industrial/architectonic and domestic worlds. My means for assembling elements (stitching, wrapping, interlocking, riveting) allows for the process to become visually apparent and an integral part of the form and structure. Details of ornamentation are direct results of the structure and reflect the inherent properties of the material used in each individual sculpture.
