For centuries, Santa Clara Pueblo potters have gathered and prepared local clay to make utilitarian vessels that are considered works of art. Traditions evolve over the centuries. Today, Roxanne Swentzell uses traditional techniques to build clay figures full of passion and humor.
Rose B. Simpson (Santa Clara), The Four (installation view), ceramic, jute, grout. Installation created for the Nevada Museum of Art. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman.
Her daughter, Rose B. Simpson, learned to work with the earth from her mother, fashioning not only vessels but adobe bricks to build the home she grew up in. Simpson left the Pueblo for schooling and returned with a master’s degrees in ceramics from Rhode Island School of Design and later a master’s degree in creative non-fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts. The attachment to home was strong. She returned to the land that holds the memory of her people’s pride, of colonization, oppression and survival. Her work addresses those themes.
Rose B. Simpson (Santa Clara), The Four (installation view), ceramic, jute, grout. Installation created for the Nevada Museum of Art. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman.
At the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, she has created an installation of four monumental clay figures that appear to be rising up out of the soil. The Four will be on view through April 3, 2022.
The museum notes, “Rose B. Simpson is a mixed-media artist, whose work addresses the emotional and existential impacts of living in the 21st century, an apocalyptic time for many analogue cultures. Her figures are often powerful matriarchs or androgynous beings who channel the spirits of high art, hip hop, lowrider culture, and long-lost ancestors.”
Coming from a complex tribal history and the rich intellectual and artistic history of her immediate family, she addresses and calls our attention not only to the status of Indigenous women but to our common humanity.
Through April 3, 2022
Rose B. Simpson: The Four
Nevada Museum of Art
160 W. Liberty
Reno, NV 89501
(775) 329-3333
www.nevadaart.org
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