Lorna Simpson

Well-known in the mid-1980s for her large-scale photograph-and-text works that confront and challenge narrow, conventional views of gender, identity, culture, history and memory. With the African-American woman as a visual point of departure, uses the figure to examine the ways in which gender and culture shape the interactions, relationships and experiences of our lives in contemporary multi-racial America. In the mid-1990s, began creating photographs printed on felt that depict the sites of public--yet unseen--sexual encounters. Recently, turned to moving images in which she presents individuals engaged in intimate and enigmatic yet elliptical conversations. Work includes drawings based on the characters in a recent video work constructed from found film footage. As a collection, these portraits become studies on the construction of identity.