Goddess in the Bullpen

Simcoe and Lee show at Jackson Artworks

by Jasmine Maharisi

If Barbara Simcoe had her way, she’d put the entire world on mute.

Not permanently, of course, but long enough to combat modern culture’s

overabundance of stimuli.

“My works are quiet, yet at the same time they intentionally silence a sensory
overloaded and violent culture,” Simcoe said in her artist’s statement.

In her latest joint show with husband and fellow artist Lee Murray, Simcoe gives the
viewer a glimpse of this quiet, contemplative state through various paintings, drawings
and digital prints.

It’s during this transient state that Simcoe plunges the deep well, a Jungian reference to
the collective unconsciousness and the archetypes within it. But it’s the feminine
archetype that’s truly the concern here: woman as mother, creative vessel and
representation of earth.

The main archetype explored in the show is the Black Madonna, hence the title of the
exhibit. A Black Madonna, or Black Virgin, is a depiction of the Virgin Mary or Mother
Goddess with dark or black skin. The exact origin of this icon isn’t clear, and its shroud
of mystery fascinates artists and historians alike.

The show begins with a small, yet powerful painting titled “We Are Waiting,” an oil on
panel depicting two women, one veiled, the other with a piece of fabric covering her
face. In the background, the remains of a temple are visible, as is the head and torso of
a Black Madonna. Simcoe uses an earth-tone palette in this work, as she does in most
of the show, and incorporates a stark combination of colors: sand, sky blue and dark
stone.
But it’s the subject matter that makes the piece so alluring. The women are partially
inside, partially out, sharing space with a Black Madonna statue that’s in grave danger
of going unnoticed by the viewer. And the question lingers: What, or who, are they
waiting for?

“Desert,” an oil painting of a white clothed figure in the foreground and two shadowed
figures in the background is one of the show’s many pieces that contain the highly
symbolic cave. Another feminine symbol, the cave represents the interior; namely, the
womb. But Simcoe doesn’t stop there with symbols and metaphors. While the woman in
the foreground of the painting is dressed in white, the other two figures are shadowed in
darkness and remain in the cave. This could be interpreted as a nod to the concept of
duality; light and dark, for example, or the conscious and subconscious.

In “Fountain,” a digital print, the face of a Black Madonna floats within a background of
vivid blue water. The cave is once again present, with its jagged exterior encompassing
the top of the pictorial plane. The face — like many of the show’s photographs — was
taken by Simcoe in France, while she was researching the Black Madonna Shrines.

To call Simcoe a surrealist would be inaccurate. Yes, her work contains surrealistic
elements, but a strong thread connects the images buried within the paintings’ space.
Rather than allowing the images to exist autonomously, Simcoe uses color and light to
unify them. By doing this, the viewer is able to accept the surrealist elements as
shadows of truth, rather than automatically rejecting them as unrealistic. The symbols
are gentle, discreet and could almost go unnoticed if the viewer were to merely glance
at the work. In this aspect, the images buried in Simcoe’s work go beyond surreal and
become subliminal.
Moving away from the feminine and into the realm of the masculine is artist Lee Murray
and his satirical short film Isabella. Murray, who works mainly in collage and cinema,
creates a movie about a matador and his beloved bull, Isabella. Although the film is a
sequence of illustrations, clips from old black-and-white Spanish films and digital art
images, it seems to have a plot. The core of that plot is debatable, but reference of the
Spanish queen, particularly as a bull, is an obvious element. It also furthers the show’s
overall concept of dualities.

In preparation for Murray’s movie, viewers can see small-scale collage works depicting
the matador and Isabella. With titles such as “Hell is a Room above a Butcher Shop,”
Murray’s work is humorous, yet not entirely irreverent to the relationship between a
matador and a bull.

While it may seem the two exhibits are anything but connected, they work together
sequentially to play off the viewer’s perception of the male/female relationship. Given
this, Matadors and Madonnas is proof that meaning will emerge from the juxtaposition
of two seemingly different ideas.

Matadors and Madonnas continues at Jackson Artworks, 1108 Jackson St., through
Feb. 28. Gallery hours are Fri.-Sat 1-9 p.m. and Sun. 1-5 p.m. For more information call
341.1832 or visit jacksonartworks.com.
17 Feb 2010