Rhiannon Inman-Simpson: A heavy tether

4 Feb-27 Feb 2022

PV 5 Feb 2022, 12-6pm

A heavy tether, 2021, oil on canvas. Credit: Rhiannon Inman-Simpson

Overview

"My practice reflects on ideas surrounding bodily perception of place alongside the nature of painting itself. In my work I look at the differences in how we navigate, both physically and imaginatively, three distinct realms: the bodily experience of an environment, the pictorial space of a painting and the space of written language. 

My current paintings dwell on visceral encounters between body and place: the colour change when your eyes are disorientated by bright light; the sensation of moving your limbs through cold water; a rapid heartbeat. I am interested in how the gestural language of painting relates to written language. I paint from my writings, and write from my paintings, creating a circular process of making. These texts become the titles of the works and form publications. 

Approaching each work instinctively, I move between colour, form and marks in the way I might move my body through a physical environment. These fleshy movements are reflected in the changes in pace, weight and density of the marks; a translation of bodily sensations into paint. I pull the green vertically to the top edge and back down again, like a figure or a breath or just a feeling of being vertical in the world. I bring the blue inside until it just about touches the pink". 

Rhiannon Inman-Simpson (b. 1989, London UK) gained her Masters at Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Norway, in 2016, her BFA from The Glasgow School of Art in 2011, and participated on the Turps Art School Correspondence Course in 2019 and 2020.

Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Galerie Julien Cadet, Paris (2021) and Visningsrommet USF, Norway (2020), and group shows at Pulpo Gallery, Germany (2021), Electro Studios Project Space, UK (2021), Hordaland Kunstsenter, Norway (2020) and Bergen Kunstmesse, Norway (2020). In 2021 she was shortlisted for the Jackson’s Painting Prize, winning the abstract award. In 2022 she will have solo shows at BBNR Gallery, London and Pulpo Gallery, Germany, and undertake a residency at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, USA.