Emily Simpson
All Work by Emily Simpson
My practice is not currently concerned with a specific media, but is united by the
same concept, that of entropy, the gradual decline of order. My work seeks to
disassemble the common signs of meaning or reality, playing with the ‘pleasures
of chaos’ to create a slippage of understanding, of representation. This can be
done through the camera, where the photographic is devoid of preconceptions
of representation, ceasing to ‘attest that the world exists’ as is commonly
assumed by removing form and ‘truthful’ representation from the image. The
photographic image no longer serves as an assumed ‘extension’ of reality, rather
as a tool of expression, from which to reinterpret, to paint instead of depict, to
make the physical abstract. Similarly this ‘slippage’ of meaning can be expressed
through physical form, such as a succession of disassembled and reassembled
objects. Here the process of unraveling and reforming devoids the object from
its function, allowing us to reimagine through degeneration. Undeniably the
object cannot be reformed ‘perfectly’, allowing a deliberated framework from
which accidental disorder can exist. This use of a self-imposed ‘framework’
within which order and disorder can align is central to my practice. By setting
parameters for the work to form within, I allow a ‘system’ of accident to unfold.
These accidents may be of nature, of the man made or mechanical. For example
a recent work focused upon the continual scanning and reprinting of a ‘blank’
image, allowing the mechanical discrepancies of printing to materialize and
dematerialize substance. Not being guided by any unified form or media, I
allow a process of ‘collection’ and observation to inform a work or process’
starting point. ‘HOARD’ therefore would exist as an incubation space, in which
these series and collections can exist. By collating objects of personal interest,
often the mundane or minute, I am able to conceive my own means of arbitrary
systemization, from which works can evolve or reside within, developing a
correspondence between formulaic and chaotic order, between accidental and
formalized disorder.
