Robert Simon: Meanderings of the MIND
February 5-26, 2021
Robert Simon: Meanderings of the MIND
Opening reception: Friday, February 5, 5:00-8:00 PM
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday 9 AM – 5 PM
INTRODUCTION
Robert Simon was born in 1949 in East St. Louis, Illinois. He spent most of his early life in small railroad towns in southern Illinois and West Tennessee. He began teaching in 1972 and spent 40 years teaching US History, Government, and Sociology, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he still resides in retirement. Simon began drawing about age 12, penciling and shading boxes, triangles, and circles in the margins of his school books and notebook paper. He has never taken an art class and, until his early fifties when he sold his first piece, he never considered himself an artist. He hid his work from outside eyes and it remained “his secret” for years, stacking up in closets and under beds, becoming his own private gallery. Overtime, his drawings became significantly more complex, the shading gave way to brilliant, vivid colors, the shapes and figures became ever more diverse and multifaceted. Today, with each drawing, a new expression of his changing inner consciousness emerges.
FROM THE ARTIST
Drawing is and has been an incredible escape for me throughout most of my life. People often ask me how I can do this. To me, it makes more sense to ask how can I not do it. Drawing puts a sense of balance and order into my world. People frequently ask me what certain drawings mean. I believe that art evokes thoughts and feelings that are the viewer’s own. To dictate what should be interpreted interferes with what the viewer may need most out of the experience. Each person is free to input whatever meaning they wish on my work. There is much about my work that at first seems chaotic and confusing, but, if one looks closely, continually repeating patterns form a larger entity. I see my art as visual jazz of limitless patterns and infinite combinations with no set conventions to follow.
FROM ART CRITICS & JOURNALISTS
Simon was described as an amazing outsider talent by the Director of the former Tag Gallery (see Exhibitions, below). “His outlet is creating beautiful, abstract pieces filled with brilliant colors and themes that constantly change no matter how long one looks at them,” Jerry Dale, curator for Tag Gallery, wrote of Simon. “His drawings are mirrors of his soul, expressing streams of thoughts that he cannot articulate to others or even to himself. Refreshingly original and raw, each piece is unique with his imprint on it.” The Encyclopedia of Living Artists described his work as “manifesting from a purity that invites the ceaseless flow of form and symbol from his inner self. He is a vehicle for the collective unconscious, mirroring the heartbeat of the mind and introducing the viewer to their own set of memories.” Marjorie Kaye, Director of the former Caladan Gallery and Gallery 181, said that Simon’s images are loaded with love and humor, observation and declaration. “He is an artist shooting from the
hip, with no restraints on the material manifestation of his imagination! His work exudes a
freedom and natural exuberance rarely seen – probably because he does not impose any
conventions on himself. One could find one’s reflection in his work for hours, days, and even an eternity! We also must mention his use of color, texture, and form as being highly bindless in nature. This is a gift to us.”
EXHIBITIONS
About 20 years ago, a friend encouraged Simon to exhibit a few pieces of his work. Since then,
he has been exhibited and sold in a number of physical and online galleries as follows:
1. Simon’s work has been chosen to exhibit at the 22nd and 23rd Arts in the Airport exhibitions at McGee Tyson Airport in Knoxville Tennessee, one currently underway.
2. The Oak Ridge Art Center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, nearly annually selects Simon’s art work for their annual Open Show. This past show for 2020 netted him the Dot Hightower Award for Excellence in Any Media Depicting a Strong Sense of the Individual.
3. The Henry Boxer Gallery of London, England, the leading gallery of its kind in the UK.
Henry Boxer is a founding director of Raw Vision magazine as well as Gallery Director and exhibited Simon’s work at the the New York Outsider Art Fair and the Chicago Outsider Art Fair. His website continues to exhibit Simon’s work.
4. The Webb Gallery in Waxahachie, Texas
5. At Home Gallery, curated by Michael Smith in Greensboro, North Carolina
6. The former TAG Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee, with Jerry Dale McFadden as Director,
showcased Simon’s work and held several special showings on his behalf.
7. Caladan Gallery, a Massachusetts-based online gallery, featured Simon’s work in theme
expositions and dedicated a “page” solely for his work.
8. Folk Fest, Atlanta, Georgia
9. Arts in the Garden at Skyland Trails Residential Treatment Center, Atlanta, Georgia
10. Java House, Knoxville, Tennessee
11. Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge, Tennessee
12. Second place cover spot in the 14th Edition of Encyclopedia of Living Artists, May 2005
issue
Simon was invited to speak at the Skyland Trails Residential Treatment Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where he spoke on the topic of healing through art and how those most troubled can find some medium in which to express their innermost thought and feelings. He has spoken to groups at the Community College of Vermont in Burlington, The Children’s Art Museum in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the Waldorf School in Nashville, Tennessee. His audiences comprise both children and adults.
https://www.facebook.com/mindmuses
Artist Process – Robert Simon
When Simon sits at his drawing table, pen in hand, a blank canvass before him, he is more or less in a meditative state with little bubbles and splashes at the back of the subconscious, in free fall and coalescing, making their way through the labyrinth of his mind to crystallize in substance and form, color and shape, chaos and order on the canvas before him. He first draws outward from basic shapes and simple intersections, then from the outside in, making new complex connections and alliances, collaborations of shape and color. Does he ever make a mistake? With no preconceived notion of what he will draw, there are no lines to draw outside of, no wrong colors or shading. His art is visual jazz of limitless patterns and infinite combinations.
The Universal Artist Within: Recipe for Visual Jazz
Step 1. Start with simple shape – circle, triangle, square – applied to illustration board
Step 2. Draw outward using free-flow stream of consciousness
Step 3. Redirect, drawing inward by thoughts and mood
Step 4. Turn board repeatedly
Step 5. Randomly add colors as directed by the mind’s eye; return to black
Step 6. Mix in a dash of mind-freeing pattern repetition
Step 7. Fill in all empty space
Step 8. Add generous amounts of feelings and uncertainty
Step 9. Carefully blend in chaos and order
Step 10. Do not set the timer. You will know when it is done
No two creations will be the same because one’s mind is never in the same place twice. There are no mistakes. One cannot color outside the lines if there are no lines.
One of the themes that play throughout my work is a constant battle between order and chaos. At first look, my drawings seem disorganized, confused, with patterns and figures spinning or gyrating multi-directionally. On closer examination, one can see constantly repeating and coalescing patterns to form order within a larger entity. While drawing, thoughts flow rapidly, freely, not fixating on any one idea but come as images floating leaf-like downstream, emerging from the subconscious into finely patterned drawings, a type of automatic drawing. These streams of thoughts are difficult to put into words. What I hope to be is a vehicle for the collective unconscious, mirroring the heartbeat of the mind and introducing the viewer to their own set of perhaps forgotten or neglected memories. One might even find one’s reflection in my work. If any combination of line, shape, or color evokes a personal connection, stimulates creative thought, or awakens a meaningful memory, I have
been successful.