Category archives: Sculptor
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9 years ago
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Bushwick Open Studios wrapped up a while back and this year featured a lot of wild installations, fantastical sculptures, and a return to painting. While I was there, I stopped in Pablo Garcia Lopez's studio where I saw his work that mixed all of the three. A couple of weeks later, I went back to sit down with him and talk about his practice and transformation into an artist.
Garcia Lopez did not begin working professionally as an artist until recently - his background is actually in neuroscience. He holds a PhD and still teaches classes. One of his published papers on Santiago Ramon y Cajal, known to many in the field as the father of modern neuroscience, plays heavily into his artistic practice. Cajal moved away from the accepted comparison of the mind to machines, and rather pursued the idea of comparing the mind to nature, specifically plants. Cajal said, "The cerebral cortex is similar to a garden filled with innumerable trees, the pyramidal cells, that can multiply their branches thanks to an intelligent cultivation, sending their roots deeper and producing more exquisite flowers and fruits every day." Writing in the 19th century, his words come into play much later in the silk sculptural installations by Garcia Lopez.
After learning of his background and interest in this matter, I was immensely curious as to how exactly it manifests in the artist's religiously charged works. He explained that his use of silk relates to the individual fibers of the brain, and [...]
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Please visit my full artist website:
www.philipsimmons.net
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Questions and comments welcome at
simmonsphilip@gmail.com
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Philip Simmons was born in Maryland, and studied English literature before attending the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, graduating with a degree in Fine Art in 1999. He then moved to Germany to work as an assistant to sculptor Hartmut Stielow and attend the University of Applied Arts and Sciences in Hannover. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree over the course of two years. In addition, Simmons spent a year at the University of the Arts Berlin (HdK) in the atelier of Professor David Evison. Upon returning to the United States, Simmons moved to Brooklyn, where he lived and worked for 12 years. He has exhibited widely in group and solo shows in New York, Philadelphia, Denmark, Holland, and Germany, and been awarded residencies in Iceland and Holland. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in Croton-on-Hudson, NY.
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Sculpture:
In my series of sculpture made of resin, metal, and vinyl, I draw on pop sources and the news media to comment on American culture. One of the themes that unifies this work is a nostalgia for a mythic golden age in American society that was created on television and in the movies. In this media landscape, cowboys and astronauts occupy the same cultural space. Some of these pieces start with an iconic image I find on the internet. The humor in some of the work comes from acknowledging the simplicity of that innocent viewpoint.
Drawings:
The drawings are inspired by contemporary and classical theories in math, science, and philosophy, including particle physics, cosmology, and string theory. Scientists and theorists have recently made significant strides towards understanding the fundamental structure of the universe, however, the fundamental truths remain elusive and difficult to prove. I see relationships between these ideas and the writings of David Hume, the 18th century skeptical philosopher who questioned our ability to know things with certainty, due to the fallibility of our human faculties.
