It made me a bit fearless, she tells me.
Lorna had been doing drawings and collages for the last few years.
Youre just worried about making some paintings, and the earth is moving beneath you like a freight train?
SHOWSTOPPER“I’ve had to disengage with labels of what kind of artist I am or what I do,” says Simpson, in Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello, photographed in the Engelhard Court at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, where her paintings will be exhibited in May. Photographed by Tina Barney. Sittings Editor: Max Ortega.Vogue, March 2025.
she thought to herself.
Just make some paintings!
Dont be so precious about it.
Two works in dialogue:In Furs,a photo collage Simpson created in 2010, andTrue Value,from 2015, which portrays the same subject in a different medium—ink and acrylic on gessoed wood. © Lorna Simpson. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
Its like, just try it and see what happens.
A year later, the much-admiredcurator Okwui Enwezorshowed Lornas first paintings at the Venice Biennale.
She is a conceptual artist who made us rethink what conceptual art waswhatartwasat a particular moment.
Mind Reader,2019. © Lorna Simpson. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: James Wang.
Ive always been this way.
Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
I spent my childhood and young adulthood going to The Met, she says.
Painted work by Simpson.Vanish,2019, ink and screenprint on gessoed fiberglass. © Lorna Simpson. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.Vanish,Photo: James Wang.
Its a very tall painting and shes holding two breasts on a plate.
(The woman is Saint Agatha and the breasts are hers.)
The bodily mutilation and the calm, calm presentationI thought it was crazy and also very powerful.
Three Figures,2014, ink and screenprint on Claybord panels.Three Figures,Photo: Blaine Campbell.Produced by Preiss Creative.
Her first painting,True Value,did just that.
The cheetah has the face of its owner, whose face is now the cheetahs.
In the painting she shifted the light from day to night: a dark, purple-blue, midnight sky.
Theres such surrealness and absurdity in [theJet] image itself, she says.
I just reversed things, switching the head of the cheetah with the head of the woman.
Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
Photo: James Wang.
When Lorna wanted to start painting in 2015, she called her friend the artistGlenn Ligon.
Not sure what I said to Lorna back then, Glenn tells me.
And often its a question no one can answer.
Also, she began to work at a commanding scale.
Bold, politically coded, and confident flights of the imagination marked Lornas passage into yet another medium.
Screen-printing images on gessoed panels, she used inks and acrylic paint at large scale.
She accomplished something of her ownshe called them abstracted landscapes.
Painted work by Simpson.Vanish,2019, ink and screenprint on gessoed fiberglass.
Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.Vanish,Photo: James Wang.
Lorna, who was divorced in 2017, concedes she is very evasive about her private life.
In all my relationshipswith my daughter, close friends, and loverintimacy and making space for it is key.
Her subject this time was meteorites.
She had been fascinated byMinerals From Earth and Sky,a book published by the Smithsonian in 1929.
Lorna delved into the records and was able to identify him as Ed Bush.
But this was about Ed Bushs experience of having a meteorite fall at his feet.
Particularly the sonic experience, she tells me: It was all about the sound.
He heard it before it landed.
She wrote a note to herself with three thoughts on it: Black man.
She began experimenting with silver and black acrylic paint to create an atmosphere of depth and radiancy.
Three Figures,2014, ink and screenprint on Claybord panels.Three Figures,Photo: Blaine Campbell.Produced by Preiss Creative.
The Met museum boughtDid Time Elapse,one of the meteorite paintings.
In this one, the object seems to be hovering in midair, ready to fall on your foot.
Its more luminous and maybe more friendly than the others.
There are all these different kinds of voices that can curtail creativity.
I can kind of do anything.
Lorna Simpson Simpson: Source Notes opens May 19 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
