Source Notes, 2019. Ink and screenprint on gessoed fiberglass. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

“There’s been a lot of death… you go to the studio, and you’re like, ‘I don’t feel like doing anything today but crying.’”– Lorna Simpson

Tragedy evokes emotion; emotion evokes art.

In her recent exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, acclaimed artist, Lorna Simpson, uncharacteristically finds herself painting as a means to cope with the untimely passing of her dearly beloved. Deeply affected by the recent loss of friends and family, Simpson eulogizes their deaths by rendering her blues.

Esteemed as a conceptual photographer throughout her forty year career, Simpson departs from photography and returns to painting – decades after graduating from the School of Visual Arts where she once practiced it. When experiencing her blue canvases, one quickly realizes that photography was her medium of choice, not a consolation. In her show Darkening, Simpson skillfully applies ink on fiberglass as a means to deal and emit her pain.

Although the Brooklyn native shifted mediums, her work continues to address and critique race, gender and identity. In the piece, Darkening, one can see the figuration of a landscape glacier, which can be interpreted as a metaphor for the weight and pressure she felt during difficult times. Yet, Simpson didn’t completely pivot away from her signature practice; her poetic use of text, which we’ve seen in previous works, surfaces in the show. She also adds super-imposed portraits of women from Ebony magazine, one of her favorite references, representing the Black female gaze in the work, Specific Notation, 2019.

Simpson’s courage to work through adversity encourages her viewership to persevere during tough times. Perhaps we, too, can find solace in airing out our blues.

Darkening was on view from April 25, 2019 to July 26, 2019 at Hauser & Wirth in Chelsea, NYC.