WILBA SIMSON

Wilba Simson’s (b. 1990) Melbourne Australia artistic practice incorporates painting, drawing, sculpture and videoed performance, exploring unconventional art processes that challenge the way we see memory. The work explores the chaotic tensions, contradictions and beauty of liminal spaces through imagined landscapes. An exploration of memory, personal history and performance, Simson questions the way in which we relate to and see our past to how it could be seen in the present. Simson believes, Like memories, communication is imperfect.  Clarity is never neat in its definition. Chaos is the natural state. So imperfect communication becomes the perfect vehicle to communicate imperfect memories. The best metaphor for this unknowingness for him is light. Using light to explore how the landscape can be seen and at the same time how it can blow out one’s perspective. Lasering streams of light brand the movement of what happened, or is about to. The disconnect of the neon white light chaotically cuts through the stability of its ground plains formal likeness.

Simson creates art processes of contradiction to challenge the visual outcome and perspective of seeing memory. On one hand a process that creates a world of familiarity with floor boards and other identifiable signifiers; and on the other hand a process that is designed to abstract and challenge the forma processes material likeness.