Mary Simpson
Boys or Women
David Petersen Gallery, Minneapolis
April 10 – May 30, 2015
︎ text
︎ press
“You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams.”
--Cleopatra to Dolabella,
“Antony and Cleopatra,” Act V, Scene II, William Shakespeare
In a suburb outside of Cologne
Mary and Gerhard are sitting in Gerhard’s studio drinking espresso. They are arguing.
G: There is impulse and there is control of impulse.
M: But how can you calculate an image in proportions like milk to coffee?
G: It is a danger to let heroic feelings into an image. You have to discipline the image.
M: Those absurd feelings. It’s not so analytical. Even whales mate belly to belly.
G: Whales and humans.
M: Any chimp can fling paint. What if control is just the cycle of doing something over and again? You reach for the image and it is there for you.
G: This is why I envy women, the indulgence in a madness every 28 days! It is wonderful, the organization of it.
Eye and Joint, 2015
Detail of collage inset