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GREGG SIMPSON
Homage aux Nabis
The Pont-Aven Suite
Curated by Allan Graubard
Text by Allan Graubard
Vegetal beings in flourishing choreographies
Processional groups turning in circles
Into the Swirl
acrylic on canvas, 40" x 54", 2023
The Artist with Processional Group
A garden for Hermes, herald of the Gods, creator of the arts and sciences, where transformations multiply
Close by, water spirits hover, amphibious clusters in geomantic combustion
The Garden of Hermes acrylic on canvas, 30" x 34", 2019 |
Water Spirit gouache and pastel, 27.5" x 23.5", 2019 |
The moon rises for Max (Ernst, that is) with its yellow-green penumbra above
distant low mountains with their geologic script written by metals scored into their cliffs
Moon For Max
acrylic on canvas, 34" x 42", 2018
Couples – exuberant, warm – take to them, embracing then singing of their
triumphs and struggles and hopes and despairs.
The Couple
gouache and pastel, 23.5" x 27.5", 2019
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Jeweled figures they are, ever in duet
above clawed landscapes
Jeweled Figure gouache and pastel, 27.5" x 23.5", 2019 |
Clawed Landscape gouache and pastel, 23.5" x 27.5", 2019 |
Then at a fork in the Breton country road is the arrow to Pont-Aven.
With brushes, oils, acrylic, gouache and pastels, Gregg Simpson has made
its shimmering, luminous horizons his own
The Road to Pont-Aven
acrylic on canvas, 63.5 cm x 177.8 cm / 25" x 70", 2022
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Originating in Pont-Aven then translated to Paris, a small group of artists, inspired
by Gaugin and tutelary sources in the occult and hermetic sciences, sought in
color the free expression of emotion as the 19th century ended
They called themselves the Nabis, a Hebrew word for prophet, animating the
transition to abstraction, which launched modern art
(Lt.) The Father C.R.C. Memorial Painting, acrylic on panel, 1975
(Rt.) The Talisman, acrylic on canvas, 1970
Bridging epochs and places, the dance continues. Compelled early on by the
occult and hermetic sciences, which fed Simpson’s founding of the first surrealist
group in Vancouver in 1977, he offers this homage -- as
much to an art that was as to the landscape and culture he encountered there,
replete with shifting forms and lyrical talismans
Cyclopean Dancer
acrylic on canvas, 34" x 30", 2023
Along the way, on this camino, beings both hieratic and vivacious lick their lips,
adjust their costumes and enter, stage right or left.
A “Cyclopean Dancer,” stock still, gazes out, if not directly at us then almost so;
its single solar eye burning through the blackness of space. Its
blue smile, stretching from dawn to dusk, keeps the temporal pace while behind it another being,
arm raised in benediction,
effloresces in greens and purples
The Initiates
acrylic on canvas, 61 cm x 81 cm / 24" x 32", 2022
Where “The Initiates” have clustered, waves suddenly pearl and break on light-brown
sandy banks as intimate conversations aerate portable
issues. What they are, Simpson does not tell us. Does it matter? No.
An offshore wind roves in. And in it, brightened by its salty tinge, if only for a
moment, we can recall what happened, when, and how we
responded, alone or with others we love or hate or enjoy simply for whom the
are, friends, family, acquittances, strangers and enemies, too
Hermetic Landscape
acrylic on canvas, 36" x 30", 2018
What then is this “Hermetic Landscape” with its trees bent by gales, distant
waves glistening, a bikinied bather drawn by the girth and roll of an ocean that
links continents, but which when crossing it, between
betweens, sets her free to conjure what she will and what you might, happy like
her to dream with eyes open.
Sunshine Arch
gouache and pastel, 27.5" x 23.5", 2019
“Sunshine Arch” with its bent Oryx, Ibex or Gazelle head balanced by twin horns
transports us to an imaginary landscape whose measured chromatic refracts
that of our life-giiving star
Has Simpson fashioned a visual Ark against the crashing elements that we are
prey to as our century evolves? Or is this his paen to Neolithic
hands whose secretive, cave-drawn imagery of animals and humans has startled
us since we first discovered them, the rocks on which they were done their musculature?
The choice is yours
Moon Ritual
acrylic on canvas, 52.07 cm x 122 cm / 20.5'"x 48", 2022
But whatever you choose, know this: in this exhibition Simpson’s art roots in and
flowers from his created Brittany, with all its Celtic ghosts and
munificent specters, its female covens, its wind carved escarpments and wave
sculpted, twisted rock pinnacles, its radiant moon cycles, its
agrarian communes and their seasonal celebrations in this and that hamlet
or village or city as if, when gathered, they crafted
Les Paradis Artificiels
acrylic on canvas, 30" x 34", 2018
“Les Paradis Artificiels” from two ensembles, nature and culture; each
transfiguring the other. The earth, air, light and water we come from and the
values we give back to them and exchange among ourselves ...
In this sense, Simpson’s Homage aux Nabis: The Pont-Aven Suite attends to our
needs and desires, revealing each anew. In gazing at his art,
windows sparkle and doors open in a dwelling as transparent as crystal- a ritual
homage that plays… then to now, there to here …
Allan Graubard
New York, 2025
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