I stepped into the magical universe of Lorna Simpson’s mind a few months ago.

Multimedia artists hold a special place in my heart because they’re a true testament to accepting that we can be all that we want to be. Their creativity is limitless.

Lorna is a conceptual photographer and contemporary artist who first became well-known in the 1980s. Starting with photography she naturally progressed into various media including film, video, painting, drawing and sculpture.

The ‘Everrrything’ exhibit stood out to me because of her use of imagery that reflected the cosmos and Black women - two topics that are high on my favorites list.

Walking into the Hauser & Wirth gallery felt like another world on it’s own, so to be transported into another through the medium of art, took the experience to another level.

The first stop was a continuation of her ‘Ice Series.’ I gazed at what appeared to be isolated drifting glaciers, detached from their original source. With no explanation as to why, or where they could be possibly going.

I saw a familiar glimpse into how our everyday choices are affecting Mother Earth.

You’ve seen it before. A somber image or video of polar bears or flapping penguins, living their instinctive arctic life in a new world of swiftly melting ice altering the place they’ve called home for centuries.

But instead of our frigid temperature loving friends, I saw faces that looked like mine. Images that had no indication if they were from the past or present.

The use of deep blues invited a calm but quivering dark presence into the room. There was a glimpse of hope when that same blue faded into lighter hues, but the overwhelming presence of indigo and navy makes that glimpse miniscule.

I like to think that art’s true meaning is in the eye of the beholder. But I also find joy in the reasoning behind the artist’s choices.

“All these natural forces, in peril at the same time. To me, it’s not so much an environmental thing as society, in particular America, being in peril in countless ways. It’s overwhelming, but not new. It’s a return to the past. There’s a lot still going on that’s the same in terms of racism, bigotry and the whole shebang.”
Source: https://www.wallpaper.com/art/lorna-simpson-hauser-wirth-london

The reimagining didn’t stop there. She turned old into new, and vice versa through her collage works featuring vintage images from Jet and Ebony magazines. These images are mounted on top of cosmic imagery that transitioned perfectly into her larger than life canvases in the next room.

Looking up, into those mysterious eyes, I saw versions of myself, yet again. Maybe in a different world, beyond what we know, but an inner-knowing that it’s all one in the same.

Mmy favorite stop was a wall filled with snaps of black and brown faces that felt like looking through a family photo album. Aunties, uncles, cousins, grannies and grandpas from yesterday’s past.

Her use of repurposed photos throughout the entire exhibit and her work in general is done with intention:

“They are detached from the content or from the thing they were supposed to represent, it’s not nostalgia, but rather an alignment of how similar what we are living now is to parts of the American past that aren’t that long ago. A compression of time.”
Source: https://www.wallpaper.com/art/lorna-simpson-hauser-wirth-london

From her collages filled with old newspaper clippings to her continuous use of imperfect cement slabs, this exhibit proved one thing to me…that there is beauty in everrrything. You just have to be willing to discover it