Alice Simpson ~ New York

Hip Hop
by Alice Simpson
1996. One-of-a-Kind.
15 x 13.5 x 31" tri-fold hand painted. Text by Alice Simpson.

One of Alice Simpson's interests in recent years has become a fascination with the hip hop craze. She did a series of sculptures called "Urban Motion" in which the movements of this modern music wave are captured. In late 2004 her work was exhibited at the Interchurch Center Treasure Room Gallery in New York City.

              I danced with
              Georgia O'Keefe last night,
              black babushkas on our heads.
              We climbed over lofty rocks
              to a place amongst skulls and
              pink Hibiscus
              where we could
                     Hip Hop
                     to howling wolves
                     in wedding attire.
$1,400

MAP
by Walt Whitman
2002. Edition of 3.
11" high. Opens to 33". Materials used include laser print with acrylic, collage, tissue and found objects in paste paper covered tube. Inspired by Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass - There Was A Child Went Forth."

The road map of dreams, marking a lifetime - journaling places and ideas. The romantic musings of an artist. In Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading, he uses upsilambda, his fanciful creation of a word meaning "a bird or catapult with wondrous consequences." Simpson is drawn to Victorian Eadweard Muybridge's photos of the figure in motion. She incorporates his somersaulting figures into artist books and sculptures.
$600

A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare
2003. One-of-a-Kind.
5.75 x 5.5 x 33" open. Accordion structure using vintage burlesque images from Folies Bergere, Paris (1925 -1926) Erte costumes. Includes Collaged vintage images from Folies Bergere, Paris (1925-1926) with additional Victorian and floral images embedded into pastepapers, bronze pigment, iridescence, and satin ribbon.
$600

    I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
    Where oxslips and the nodding violet grows,
    Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,
    With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
    There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
    Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight.
         William Shakespeare~ A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Bird
by Pablo Neruda
2001. One-of-a-Kind.
7.5 x 8 x 30" open. Accordion structure with paper covered boards. Includes a E. Muybridge photo collage and gel medium. Calligraphy in walnut ink by artist on handmade papers.

Simpson uses Muybridge's photographs of a body in motion to accompany Neruda's poetry. "I saw how wings worked..."
$400

In Praise of Ironing
by Pablo Neruda
2000. One-of-a-Kind.
11 x 24 x 36" open accordion structure in enclosure. Materials include E. Muybridge photos, collage, spackle, and acrylic on handmade papers with additional mixed media. Collaboration with choreographer and dancer, Riccardo Gomez to produce unique Book/Dance performance piece with dance, poetry as image, spoken text, and tango music.

One of Simpson's pieces combining her love of dance with her love of Neruda's poetry. In this structure the poetry is hung out like sheets on a clothesline. Once dry, ready to iron. Surrounding these flowing cloth sheets of poetry are images of music and dance.
$800

Investigations
by Pablo Neruda
2000. One-of-a-Kind.
7.5 x 5.5 x 40" open accordion fold in box with inset label. Materials used collage, spackle, acrylic, bees wax, metal punch letters, Japanese papers. Historical photographs by Muybridge c 1884.
$1,400

Alphabet
by Alice Simpson
Edition of 4
3.1 x 3.1 x .5" opens to 43", an accordion fold book. Digital prints tipped in on Chapin Twinrocker's handmade paper. Includes Simpson's pastepapers, a resin molded cherub, Swarovski amber crystal beads on gold silk thread.
The prints for this alphabet are from original cherub drawings that the artist has developed over the past twenty years. The original pen and walnut ink drawings are six by six inches on Stonehenge paper and based on a seventeenth century European style alphabet.
$400

Alice Simpson, Still Dancing!

If It Ain't Got That Swing!
by Alice Simpson
2000. Edition of 4.
11 x 3.5 x .5" accordion fold with offset images from "A Midsummer Night Swing!" Uses handmade papers, beads, hand painted details.

Another of Simpson's colorful pieces combining her love of bookmaking with her love of dance. $425

Tango Bar
2001. Edition of 22
8 x 11.5" 8 pages. Accordion secured at front, bound in violet Asahi silk over boards with cover illustration and Fireworks endpapers. Letterpress printed in Bauer Bodoni on Stonehenge paper from polymer plates. Text, drawing, calligraphy and hand coloring by Alice Simpson. Accompanied by historical tango lyrics.
A brief excerpt from Simpson's novel, "The Marc Ballroom," evokes the sensuality of tango, and her dynamic illustrations bring the dance alive as couples twist and slide and gancho across the accordion spread. Four songs - El Ultimo Cafe, La Cumparsita, Mi Noche Triste, Por Una Cabeza - add richness and depth. Boxed Edition, signed and numbered.
$1500