What is my work about?
Painting will always be relevant because painting lives in every medium. (For example: painting as performance in the work of Jutta Koether or projected backdrops of Joan Jonas; as photography in the installations of Liz Deschenes; as sculpture in the monochromes of Anne Truitt). My practice is in painting and moving images. While viewing a painting I closely consider the way it changes: layers, color and light revealing moments beyond the initial surface, a two-dimensional image essentially becoming time-based. And the physicality of film, as well the classical composition of video–when projected can become a painting: the emulsion coated material capturing an image from light, the structural shots building up and adding to a composition much like layers in a painting. In film and painting I am continually asking: what are the significant and insignificant moments in an image? What does this tension reveal culturally as our relationship to still and moving images is rapidly shifting?
Artist Statement
Allegory is not a future problem. It relies on the past to retell the present. Allegory desires and consumes: the fragment, the imperfect, the incomplete. It promises to resolve the contradictions that confront culture, it is perpetually deferred. Allegory insists on abstraction and gesture within narrative space, producing something more like a pictogram than a story or a history. It is a supplement, it is excessive, it disseminates, it is a parody.
Painters insist that allegory is real. The allegorist arrives at symbol through intuition. She tends toward the mythological and psychological resonance of a landscape, a ruin, a surface. She collects without a goal, piles up the ruinous colors, poses and possible steps. This has been likened to obsessive neurosis. The directorial mode of painting does not bend to historical reference. You want to know exactly what it refers to, but you don’t. The allegorist is self-scattering, she adds another meaning to the image, poses as its interpreter. She enacts pentimenti, the “first thoughts”—previous traces within the work revealing that she has changed her mind. She stages disruption, she mocks her own obsessions. She aims for the metaphysical heart of parody. Parody is a serious matter.
We can think of an artist as producing a model for seeing an image, a model for the observer— not an image of the body but a body for the image.
CV
Education
Whitney Independent Study Program, New York, NY 2009-2010
MFA, Visual Arts, Columbia University, New York, NY 2007-2009
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine 2007
BA, English (Writing), Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA. Cum Laude. 1996-2000
Residencies
2014 Creative Lab, Center on Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Scotland
2011 Kamov Residency / Art in General Eastern European Exchange, Zagreb and Rijeka, Croatia
2004 Centrum Residency, Fort Warden State Park, Port Townsend WA
Selected Exhibitions
2014
Glass Puzzle, Simone Subal, New York
No Drink, No Talk, Just Beautiful, On Stellar Rays, New York
2013
Hollow Center, Smack Mellon, New York
2012
Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern, Bortolami, New York
Karina Bisch, Yelena Popova, Mary Simpson, Hilary Crisp, London
2011
Tailgates and Substitutes, Thierry Goldberg, New York
Tom Burr (Collaboration), Almine Rech, Brussels
Offset Summary, Rachel Uffner, New York
2010
Half a Self, a Cave Dweller, Saint Cecillia Parish, New York
Faculty Exhibition, Neiman Gallery, Columbia University, New York
Relax, Socrates Sculpture Park, New York
Whitney Independent Study Program Exhibition, Art in General, New York
2009
How to Draw a Cathedral, Max Protetch, New York
MFA Thesis Show, Columbia University, Fisher Landau Center for Contemporary Art, New York
Young Americans, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle (solo show)
2008
Bivouac, Neiman Gallery, Columbia University, New York
Floating Architectures and Constant Centers: Some Projections, Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College, PA
Thermostat, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA
2007
Thermostat: Video and the Pacific Northwest, Art Video Lounge, Art Basel Miami, FL
Nocturnes, Boise Art Museum, Boise ID
Billy in the Lowground, Punch Gallery, Seattle WA
2006
The Wired Forest, Kirkland Arts Center, Kirkland WA
Works on Paper, Davidson Contemporary, Seattle
Wait Until Spring, Brother, Seattle (solo show)
Pause, Tacoma Contemporary, Tacoma WA
2005
Nocturnes, SOIL Gallery, Seattle
Unearthing, SOIL Gallery, Seattle
Release & Capture—Kirkland Arts Center, Kirkland WA
Hello Central, Give Me Heaven, Hello Central, Give Me No Man’s Land, Tacoma Contemporary, Tacoma WA
Film Screenings and Lectures
2012
Susan Howe, Emily Dickinson and Rosemarie Trockel, hosted by Mary Simpson, The Artists Institute, New York
2011
Brick and Mortar Video Festival, Greenfield, MA
2010
Supposition of the Now, CAM2 Madrid, Spain
Whitney Independent Study Program, The Kitchen, New York
2007
Endless Summer—Selections from the Skowhegan Artist Residency Program, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle WA
Animations, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan ME
2006
Betty Bowen Memorial Award Artist Presentation, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Seattle WA
Billy in the Lowground, Screening, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle WA
Projections, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle WA
Awards
2012
Smithsonian Contemporary Artist Award Nominee, Washington, DC
2007
Columbia University Teaching Assistance Fellowship, New York
2008
Herbert S. Germaise Endowed Fellowship Award, Columbia University, New York
2007
LeRoy Neiman Center Print Fellowship, Columbia University, New York
Jacob K. Javits Commended Scholar, Javits Foundation, New York
4Culture Special Projects Grant, Seattle WA
The Gay Clifford Award, The Slade School of Fine Art, London
2006
Seattle Art Museum / PONCHO Special Recognition Award, Seattle WA
Betty Bowen Memorial Award Finalist, Seattle WA
Northwest Film Forum 16mm Equipment Access Grant, Seattle WA
2005
4Culture Special Projects Grant, Seattle WA
Bibliography
“Glass Puzzle,” Goings on about town: Art, The New Yorker, July 21, 2014
Karen Rosenberg, “Glass Puzzle,” Art in Review, New York Times, July 3, 2014
Isla Leaver-Yap, “Mary Simpson: Leap/Linger” Afterall Online, November 2011
(Written by Mary Simpson): “Charline von Heyl: Now or Else,” Parkett Issue No. 89, 2011
Isla Leaver-Yap, “Mary Simpson: MAP Commission,” MAP Magazine, UK, June 2011
Claire Barliant, “Offset Summary,” The New Yorker, February 7, 2011
David Everitt Howe, ‘Studio Visit,’ Flash Art Online, January 28, 2011
Jen Graves, ‘Young Americans,’ The Stranger, May 5 – May 11, 2009
Regina Hackett, ‘Video Artists Take the Temperature of our Region at Seattle Art Museum’, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 21, 2008
Michael Darling, Art Basel Miami Beach, Exhibition Catalogue, December 2007
Fionn Meade, Nocturnes, Exhibition Catalogue, August 2007
Regina Hackett, ‘Visual Arts: Best of 2006’, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 29, 2006
Jen Graves, ‘In Arts News: Sovereign and Tantalizing’, The Stranger, Nov 23 – Nov 29, 2006
Suzanne Beale, ‘Billy in the Lowground’, The Seattle Weekly, Nov 22, 2006
Regina Hackett, ‘Compelling Installations’, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 17, 2006
Regina Hackett, ‘Visions of Nature in the Age of Technology’, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 27, 2006
‘Private Screening’, Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, September 2006
Nate Lippens, ‘Works on Paper’, Visual Codec, September 2006
Regina Hackett, ‘Davidson Contemporary is coming up fast on the contemporary scene’, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 18, 2006
Regina Hackett, ‘In the Galleries: August’, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 3, 2006
Jen Graves, ‘In Arts News: Wait Until Spring, Brother’, The Stranger, Apr 27 – May 3, 2006
Jen Graves, ‘Stranger Suggests: Projections’, The Stranger, Feb 2 – Feb 8, 2006
Nate Lippens, ‘Visual Art: Ones to Watch’, The Stranger, Oct 8 – Oct 14, 2005
Andrew Engelson, ‘Visual Arts Pick: Nocturnes’, Seattle Weekly, Sep 21 – 27, 2005
Nate Lippens, ‘Just the Motion: The Handmade Animation of ‘Nocturnes’’, The Stranger, Sep 8 – Sep 14, 2005
Fionn Meade, Nocturnes, Exhibition Catalogue, September 2005
Matthew Kangas, ‘Young talent leaves paper trail’, The Seattle Times, April 22, 2005
Nate Lippens, ‘On Exhibit – Group Shows: Released, Wanted, and Glimpsed’, The Stranger, April 7 – April 13, 2005
Regina Hackett, ‘NW artists deliver a superb flight of fancy in ‘Release & Capture’’, Seattle Post-
Intelligencer, March 25, 2005
Nate Lippens: ‘Stranger Suggests’, The Stranger, Mar 10 – Mar 16, 2005
Andrew Engelson, ‘Visual Arts Pick, Release & Capture’, Seattle Weekly, March 16 – 22, 2005
Jen Graves, ‘The Tollbooth beckons for thee’, Tacoma News Tribune, March 6, 2005
Nate Lippens, ‘Hello Central: A collaborative work on the nature of propaganda’, The Stranger, Feb 17 – Feb 23, 2005
Teaching Experience
Fall 2014, Adjunct Instructor, MFA Program, School of Art, George Washington University
Spring 2012—Fall 2014, Adjunct Instructor, School of Art, Cooper Union, New York, NY
Summer 2009—Fall 2014, Adjunct Assistant Professor, School of Art, Columbia University, New York, NY
Fall 2013—Spring 2014, Teaching Artist in Residence, Artists Space, New York, NY
Fall 2007—Spring 2009 Graduate Teaching Fellowship, School of Art, Columbia University, New
York, NY
Courses:
• Studio Visit/Critiques, MFA program, George Washington University, Washington, DC
• Intro and Advanced 16mm Film, School of Art, Cooper Union
• Video 1: Introduction to the Moving Image, School of Art, Cooper Union
• Eye & Idea: Critical Theory and Artistic Practice, Columbia University
• Senior Thesis, Columbia University
• Imprinted Image: Basic and Advanced Intaglio Printmaking, Columbia University
• Graphic Image: Basic and Advanced Silkscreen Printmaking, Columbia University
• Relief Image: Introduction to Woodcut Printmaking, Columbia University
Teaching Artist, Artists Space, New York
Fall 2013—Present
Designing and implementing new teaching initiative bringing 8th grade students at New York
PS140 on field trips to artists studios in the city and artistic and cultural institutions. Teaching
video shooting and editing as part of a larger artists in the schools program run by Artists Space
for elementary and junior high school students in lower income neighborhoods.