David Simpson

Untitled

1966

A new artist with promise for Jonathan Cooper Gallery, whose Endless Series of Towers are unendingly playful and curious.

A very substantial, early 19th century, oil-on-canvas laid down on panel showing a view of the risen Christ Pantocrator flanked by the Virgin Mary and St....

One of the three biblical ‘magi’ or ‘wise men,’ King Balthazar gave the highly prized gift of liquid myrrh to Jesus upon his birth. Balthazar was an African King...

Halo presents an amazing cast of historical black figures, most of whom were legendary and mythic characters in their time, but have been nearly lost to the vagaries and biases of history as seen through a white lens. With Halo, Greenfield brings the stories of Black folk-saints, martyrs, freedom-fighters, survivors, magicians, and visionaries back into view. Many of the figures are from the 1400-1800s, a timeframe that corresponds with Europeans beginning to use racial distinction as a tool to justify slavery. Greenfield honors their simultaneously disturbing and astounding lives by bestowing them with halos, traditionally seen as reverential symbols of adoration and respect. “I am reimagining what a saint is,” Greenfield says. “Maybe in studying their stories, they can inform us on better ways to live.” Thought to have been a descendent of central African royalty...

Califia (c. 1510) is the mythical Black warrior Queen and inspiring character in Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo’s 16th century epic poem, Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandian). In Montalvo’s tale, Queen Califia rules on the fabled island of California, a utopia brimming with pearls and gold and inhabited solely by her menacing army of black Amazon women...

Halo presents an amazing cast of historical black figures, most of whom were legendary and mythic characters in their time, but have been nearly lost to the vagaries and biases of hi...