DAVID SIMPSON: FIRST LIGHT January 26 - February 29, 2024
David Simpson
right: image courtesy of Jo Whaley
There is something inside the viewer that leaps in response to David Simpson’s paintings, a feeling that rises, draws a deep ah of breath, and becomes entranced, enmeshed in the orbit of each piece. These works have a kind of gravity – like small suns or worlds. They seamlessly pull the viewer to move, shift, to seek out the possibilities of light and color that transform across their canvases. This layered depth, this endless rippling change, gives a clue to explain why it is not only that jolt surprise of beauty that calls to us. These pieces feel alive. The work included in First Light presents a survey of Simpson’s famous interference paintings from the past 30 years. Using a unique method of combining acrylic pigment with interference paints containing micro-particles of iridescent mica – Simpson painstakingly applies layer upon layer upon layer of translucent paint to the canvas. The painted surface becomes a threedimensional space where light enters and has room to move – shimmering, reflecting, and refracting off these interference particles. It is this depth and chance interaction of light and particle that causes the signature color shifts that Simpson’s work is known for. Each piece is a revelation – from the subtle to the radical. A piece like La Belle Bleu can shift from a shining, icy, saturated blue to a flat, pewter-heavy violet with a move from left to right. The intricately textured golden surface of Small Favor ignites into champagne pink and then deepens into frosted lilac. The
deeply intense violet blue of Dark Violet Tondo glows as if with some kind of internal fire or bioluminescence, both arresting and calming. Changes in viewpoint are not the only ways that these pieces can shift. The quality, color, and intensity of the light itself will cause changes in the paintings. Natural light or gallery light, a sunny day versus a cloudy one, the declination of the sun in summer or winter, these can cause a bright blue painting to become deep purple, or a red-shift in a copper one. Which brings us back to that sense of these pieces being alive, unpredictable, and even mysterious. Like the show’s title, First Light, there is an analogy to these works in the beauty of a sunrise. Not only does it elicit that same kind of shock-ofjoy-in-beauty, but no two are ever exactly the same. The light shifts. Clouds roll through. The sun ranges across the horizon. Trees grow. Mountains wear away. And the self seeing these sights is different from one day to the next. Art is primarily a static medium: beauty (or terror) is caught up in paint or plaster, arrested in a singular moment to be experienced. What Simpson’s interference paintings do is to infuse the unknowable, transience, variation, changeability, to what at first appears fixed. Something of nature, a living element, shines through in these pieces. Never the same. Always beautiful. - Michaela Kahn, PhD
Odd Fog, 2019, acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment), 34 x 34 inches
Copper, 2020, acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment), 34 x 34 inches
Slo Burn, 2017, acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment), 34 x 34 inches
Clouded Copper, 2007, acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment), 34 x 34 inches
Lucky Day, 2011, acrylic on canvas (interference pigment), 60 x 60 inches
Dust Storm, 2018, acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment), 34 x 34 inches
Dark Violet Tondo, 1989, acrylic on canvas over board, 60 x 60 inches
Sunny Daze, 2017, acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment), 16 x 16 inches
Over & Under Lavender, 2012, acrylic on canvas (interference pigment), 48 x 48 inches
Lilac Light, 2005, acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment), 12 x 12 inches
Shrinking Violet, 2013, acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment), 12 x 12 inches
Blue Hue - And Cry, 2015, acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment), 14 x 14 inches
Maroond Maroon, 2015, acrylic on canvas (interference pigment), 18 x 18 inches
Under the Red, 2016, acrylic on canvas (interference pigment), 18 x 18 inches
Small Majesty, 2017, acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment), 16 x 16 inches
Rosa Reverso, 2000, acrylic on canvas (interference pigment), 48 x 48 inches
Odd Fog, 2019 acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment) 34 x 34 in. DS479 Click to inquire about this work
$18,000
Lucky Day, 2011 acrylic on canvas (interference pigment) 60 x 60 in. DS177 Click to inquire about this work
$65,000
Copper, 2020 acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment) 34 x 34 in. DS477 Click to inquire about this work
$18,000
Dust Storm, 2018 acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment) 34 x 34 in. DS376 Click to inquire about this work
$18,000
Slo Burn, 2017 acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment) 34 x 34 in. DS394 Click to inquire about this work
$18,000
Dark Violet Tondo, 1989 acrylic on canvas over board 60 x 60 in. DS536 Click to inquire about this work
$65,000
Clouded Copper, 2007 acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment) 34 x 34 in. DS0063 Click to inquire about this work
$18,000
Sunny Daze, 2017 acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment) 16 x 16 in. DS379 Click to inquire about this work
$8,500
Over & Under Lavender, 2012 acrylic on canvas (interference pigment) 48 x 48 in. DS575 Click to inquire about this work
$35,000
Maroond Maroon, 2015 acrylic on canvas (interference pigment) 18 x 18 in. DS580 Click to inquire about this work
$9,500
Lilac Light, 2005 acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment) 12 x 12 in. DS0015 Click to inquire about this work
$7,000
Under the Red, 2016 acrylic on canvas (interference pigment) 18 x 18 in. DS590 Click to inquire about this work
$9,500
Shrinking Violet, 2013 acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment) 12 x 12 in. DS200 Click to inquire about this work
$7,000
Small Majesty, 2017 acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment) 16 x 16 in. DS371 Click to inquire about this work
$8,500
Blue Hue - And Cry, 2015 acrylic on canvas over board (interference pigment) 14 x 14 in. DS241 Click to inquire about this work
$7,500
Rosa Reverso, 2000 acrylic on canvas (interference pigment) 48 x 48 in. DS576 Click to inquire about this work
$35,000
Born: 1928 in Pasadena, CA Lives & works in Berkeley, CA Education: 1958 1956
MFA, San Francisco State College BFA, California School of Fine Arts
Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2024, 22, 20, 19 Charlotte Jackson FIne Art, Santa Fe, NM 2021 Studio La Vitta, Verona, IT 2020, 18, 16, 11 Haines Gallery, San Francicso, CA 2016, 15 Geukens & De Vil COntemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium 2013 University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY 2012, 07, 05 Gallery SOnja Roesch, Houston, TX 2009 Modernism Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2000 Sonoma Museum of Visual Art, Santa Rosa, CA 1990 Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, NE 1978 The Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA 1967 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA 1964, 63, 61 Robert Elkon Gallery, New York, NY 1960 Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA 1959 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA Selected Group Exhibitions: 2014 Museo Fortuny, Venica, Italy 2010 Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA 2009 Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, Long Island, NY 2007, 05 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY 2005 Cicic Museum, Linden, Germany 2000 US Berkely Art Museum, Berkeley, VA The Panza di Biumo Collection, Varese, Italy 1995 M.H. de Young Memorial Art Museum, San Francisco, CA 1986 Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 1985 The Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA 1978 American Abstract Art Sincer 1945, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA (traveling) 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (traveling)
1963 Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY 1963 cont. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN 1962 Tornio Museum of Modern Art, Italy Fifty Calivornians, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY 1955 Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO M.H. de Young Memorial Art Museum, San Francisco, CA Selected Collections: Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA M.H. de Young Museum, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA La Jolla Museum of Art, La Jolla, CA John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, Il Museum of Contemporary Art (MART), Roverato, Italy Museo di Arte Cantonale, Lugano, Switzerland Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Trento, Italy Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, DC Oakland Art Museum, Oakland, CA Panza Collection, Lugano, Switzerland Villa Menafoglio Litta Panza, Biumo Superiore, Varese, Italy Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY Reed College, Portland, OR San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA Seattle Museum of Art, Seattle, WA Shasta College, Redding, CA University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
CHARLOTTE JACKSON FINE ART Celebrating 35 years
554 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | Tel 505.989.8688 | www.charlottejackson.com ©Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Inc.