Denver, Color Photograph, 2007

Artcards Review’s previously featured artist Xaviera Simmons has a show opening today at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery. “Wilderness” is on view through May 28, 2011.

(from the Press Release) Observations on natural and urban environments as they relate to social, political, personal and art histories set the stage for Simmons’ photographs. Alluding to traditions of American landscape painting and depictions of the human presence within it, carefully chosen scenery is employed as a hybrid, multivalent character harboring complex immigrant and migrant histories, an agent affecting and affected by the figures that inhabit it. Sages and nomads pose and roam through archetypal locales as conduits for the “nebulous” and “nonlinear” narratives embedded in the ground, allowing entrance into, in the artist’s terms, “other characters, narratives, and geographies.”

Hand-lettered, locally found wooden scraps affixed directly to the gallery wall comprise a sculptural installation of materials chosen for their ubiquitous use in vernacular signage worldwide. Simple painted signposts are re-imagined in a tangled matrix of fragmented, visually compelling text gleaned from notes, conversation, news articles, myth, folklore, poetry and literature, forming a disjointed tableau imbued with collective and personal memory. A lyrical, obscure landscape emerges from the cacophonous accrual of language, leaving accumulated association, conjured atmosphere and the uncanny to form meaning and perception.

Established or potential identities and histories are revealed to be as unstable as they are embedded, questioning notions of idealism and the fallibility of truth and falsehood. Reflecting on the ways photographers collect and own images, and how people define and are marked by their environs, Simmons offers a deluge of details in place of narrative to construct familiar landscapes from disparate parts.

There is something very mystical and transcendent about the work of multi-media artist Xaviera Simmons. I was introduced to her work by Ben Tischer at Invisible-Exports Gallery as part of the Lush Life exhibition, and was particularly drawn to her Owl Xerox print. But when I saw a photograph taken by Simmons of herself standing next to another woman both wearing masks perched in stillness, I became even more curious to know who this artist is. The owl is an ancient animal with symbolic associations including wisdom, foresight, messenger of secrets, as well as companions to seers and mystics, and mystery. Simmons surely exudes a plethora of mystery in her work. With a background in photography, Simmons has no desire to stick to just one medium.

Owl (1) 2010

Her photographs are often staged, but with a strong awareness of how she communicates with her surroundings. She doesn’t consider them self-portraits, but more of a narrative theatrical act. I couldn’t agree with her more here, in a sense, as I dig deeper into her work it feels as if I’m connecting excerpts leading to a larger whole. Although soft-spoken, she is not shy of showing powerful imagery to her viewers, especially in examining an African-American identity. Simmons is currently one of the Greater New York artists, which is still on view at MoMa PS1 until October 18, 2010.

Untitled (2), 2008

Images courtesy of Invisible-Exports