Works

Arthur Simms - Toy Horse - 2002
50 x 31 x 57 in Mixed media, metal, wire, toy horse, chair

Exhibition Details

Clark Gallery is honored to announce the exhibition of recent work by John Randall Nelson, sculpture by Arthur Simms, and new paintings and mixed media works by Candace Walters from November 3 through 28, 2009.  This will be the inaugural exhibition of Nelson and Simms’ works in the Boston region, and Walters’ first solo exhibition at the gallery in nearly a decade.  All are welcome to join the artists for an opening reception on Saturday, November 7th from 4-6pm.

John Randall Nelson has worked within the traditions of American Folk Art since the early 1990’s.  Pursuing painting and drawing with mixed media collage materials, Nelson combines and melds identifiable imagery with text and opaque abstract surfaces and textures.  In Nelson’s hands, iconic American forms (white diner coffee cups, candy kisses, and fruit-laden trees) are transformed into contemporary and conceptual windows into Nelson’s ironic and often humorous compositions.

Nelson’s work has been featured in exhibitions throughout the country and abroad.  His work is included in the collections of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, the Tamarind Institute, and numerous corporate collections.  He earned his MFA from the Herberger College of Fine Arts, Arizona State University in 1995 and resides in Tempe, Arizona.

Arthur Simms creates compelling sculptures influenced by his personal experiences, provoking viewers to contemplate memory, cross-cultural exchange, and spiritual and physical transitions.  Simms was born in Jamaica and now lives in Brooklyn, where he collects the skateboards, bottles, toys, and other cast-off materials used in his work.  Seemingly precariously stacked objects are obsessively wrapped in knotted wire or twine, applying an element of abstraction and sense of sophistication to what may otherwise be mistaken as a heap of junk.  Critics have noted that Simms integrates elements of modernism, Australian Aboriginal art, and the domestic crafts of the Caribbean.

Simms has led a prestigious career.  He was awarded the Rome Prize in 2002, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1999, and was featured in the 2001 Venice Biennale.  His work has been widely exhibited in venues including the Neuberger Museum, York College Art Gallery in Jamaica, Socrates Sculpture Garden, New Orleans Museum, and the Brattleboro Museum of Art in Vermont.  Simms received his MFA from Brooklyn College, where he is now an adjunct professor of Art.

Candace Walters oscillates between compositions of mixed media collage and luminous portrait and landscape paintings, referencing a personal narrative and admiration of her natural surroundings.  Composition and mark-making are significant components of Walter’s work whether her materials are acrylic and paper or newsprint, vintage ephemera, and small objects on board.  Portraits of Walters’ daughter appear throughout the new body of work, raising awareness of her maternal journey and the transition that all parents make as they observe their children becoming adults.  Exquisite and unassuming, her intimate works are finely balanced as icons of everyday emotions.

Walters has been featured in exhibitions at venues throughout the Northeast, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, and Danforth Museum.  She earned her MFA from Boston University and is now an associate professor of art at Stonehill College.