Rose B. Simpson (

Santa Clara Pueblo Santa Clara Pueblo (in Tewa: Khaʼpʼoe Ówîngeh ɑ̀ʔp’òː ʔówîŋgè ″Singing Water Village″, also known as ″Village of Wild Roses″ is a census-designated place (CDP) in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, United States and a federal ...

) (born 1983) is a mixed-media artist who works in ceramic, metal, fashion, painting, music, performance, and installation. She lives and works in

Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico Santa Clara Pueblo (in Tewa: Khaʼpʼoe Ówîngeh ɑ̀ʔp’òː ʔówîŋgè ″Singing Water Village″, also known as ″Village of Wild Roses″ is a census-designated place (CDP) in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, United States and a federall ...

. Her work has been exhibited at

SITE Santa Fe SITE Santa Fe (often referred to simply as SITE) is a nonprofit contemporary arts organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since its founding in 1995, SITE Santa Fe has presented 11 biennials, more than 90 contemporary art exhibitions, and wor ...

(2008, 2015); the

Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...

(2009, 2010); the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Santa Fe (2010); the

National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

, Smithsonian (2008); the

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between t ...

;

Pomona College Museum of Art The Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, known colloquially as the Benton, is an art museum at Pomona College in Claremont, California. It was completed in 2020, replacing the Montgomery Art Gallery which had been home to the Pomona College ...

(2016); Ford Foundation Gallery (2019); The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian (2017); the

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...

(2019); the

Savannah College of Art and Design Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private nonprofit art school with locations in Savannah, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; and Lacoste, France. Founded in 1978 to provide degrees in programs not yet offered in the southeast of the Unit ...

(2020); and the

Nevada Museum of Art The Nevada Museum of Art, is an art museum in Reno, Nevada. Located at 160 West Liberty Street in Reno, it is the only American Alliance of Museums (AAM) accredited art museum in the state of Nevada. The museum has chosen a thematic approach, placi ...

(2021).

Education

Simpson studied art at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

and the

Institute of American Indian Arts The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic S ...

, Santa Fe, where she received her BFA in 2007. She went on to receive an MFA in Ceramics from the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

in 2011 and another MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from the

in 2018. She is also a graduate of the now defunct automotive science program at

Northern New Mexico College Northern New Mexico College is a public college in Española, New Mexico. History Northern was founded in El Rito, New Mexico in 1909 as the Spanish American Normal School, with the original mission of providing teacher training for the ar ...

Española, New Mexico Española is a city primarily in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, United States. A portion of the central and eastern section of the city is in Santa Fe County. Founded as a railroad village some distance from the old Indian town of San Juan de lo ...

Artwork

Simpson is a mixed-media artist, whose work artwork investigates the complex issues of past, present and future aspects of humanity’s tenuous survival in our current ecological condition.

Exhibitions

In 2021, Simpson opened the large-scale solo exhibition "Countdown," at Savannah College of Art and Design. In 2019 to 2020, her work was featured in the traveling exhibition, “Hearts of Our People”. Simpson exhibited the sculptural work, ''Maria,'' an homage to the

San Ildefonso San Ildefonso (), La Granja (), or La Granja de San Ildefonso, is a town and municipality in the Province of Segovia, in the Castile and León autonomous region of central Spain. It is located in the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama mounta ...

Native American ceramicist,

Maria Martinez Maria Montoya Martinez (1887, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico – July 20, 1980, San Ildefonso Pueblo) was a Native American artist who created internationally known pottery. Martinez (born Maria Poveka Montoya), her husband Julian, and o ...

in which she modified and customized a 1985 Chevy El Camino with San Ildefonso blackware (glossy black on matte black) pottery designs. In 2018 to 2019 Simpson had a solo museum retrospective exhibition at the

Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian is a museum devoted to Native American arts. It is located in Santa Fe, New Mexico and was founded in 1937 by Mary Cabot Wheelwright, who came from Boston, and Hastiin Klah, a Navajo singer and medici ...

, Santa Fe New Mexico, titled ''LIT: The Work of Rose B. Simpson''. The museum produced a catalog of Simpson's work in conjunction with the exhibition. In 2016 she had a solo exhibition, entitled ''Ground'', at the

, California. In this exhibition she acted within the role of artist and curator. She mined the museum's collections to recontextualize historical objects among her own sculptures to "obliterate the western dichotomy of aesthetic versus utilitarian objects to propose an indigenous aesthetic of use and human connectedness'. Her intention in doing so was "to ground oneself is to reconnect physically to the earth, to root, to restore power, to build a strong foundation." In 2016, her work was included in ''Con Cariño: Artists Inspired by Lowriders'' at the

New Mexico Museum of Art The New Mexico Museum of Art is an art museum in Santa Fe governed by the state of New Mexico. It is one of four state-run museums in Santa Fe that are part of the Museum of New Mexico. It is located at 107 West Palace Avenue, one block off the ...

Collections

* Clay Art Center of Port Chester, New York *

Museum of Fine Arts Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum becam ...

Peabody Essex Museum The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, US, is a successor to the East India Marine Society, established in 1799. It combines the collections of the former Peabody Museum of Salem (which acquired the Society's collection) and the ...

, Salem, MA *

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

Awards / Fellowships / Residencies

* 2021 Simpson was awarded the Joan Mitchell Fellowship from the

Joan Mitchell Foundation Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

*2021 Production and Exhibition Grant, Via Art Fund, Boston, MA *2021 Residency,

The Fabric Workshop and Museum The Fabric Workshop and Museum, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, is a non-profit arts organization devoted to creating new work in new materials and new media in collaboration with emerging, nationally, and internationally rec ...

, Philadelphia, PA *2021 Residency,

Tamarind Institute Tamarind Institute is a lithography workshop created in 1970 as a division of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM, United States. It began as Tamarind Lithography Workshop, a California non-profit corporation founded by June Wayne on T ...

, Albuquerque, NM *2020 Residency, Anderson Ranch Arts Residency, Snowmass, CO *2020 President’s Award for Art and Activism,

Women’s Caucus for Art The Women's Caucus for Art (WCA), founded in 1972, is a non-profit organization based in New York City, which supports women artists, art historians, students, educators, and museum professionals. The WCA holds exhibitions and conferences to promo ...

, Chicago, IL *2017 Simpson was awarded a fellowship from the National Parks Foundation for a residency at

Aztec Ruins National Monument The Aztec Ruins National Monument in northwestern New Mexico, USA consists of preserved structures constructed by the Pueblo Indians. The national monument lies on the western bank of the Animas River in Aztec, New Mexico, about northeast of F ...

*2013 National Artist Fellowship, Native Arts & Cultures Foundation

Personal life

Simpson comes from a long line of Santa Clara Pueblo ceramic artists, including her mother

Roxanne Swentzell Roxanne Swentzell (born December 9, 1962) is a Santa Clara Tewa Native American sculptor, ceramic artist, Indigenous food activist, and gallerist. Her artworks are in major public collections and she has won numerous awards. Swentzell's work ...

, her great-aunt Nora Naranjo-Morse, and her great her great uncle

Michael Naranjo Michael Naranjo is a Native Americans in the United States, Native American blind sculptor. Born in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, NM in 1944, he is a member of the Tewa Tribe. He was raised in Taos, New Mexico, Taos, New Mexico. The son of the ...

. Her father is the sculptor, Patrick Simpson.

Musical career

For a number of years, Simpson was the lead singer in the Native American punk band, Chocolate Helicopter. She also played in the hip-hop band, Garbage Pail Kidz.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Simpson, Rose B. 1983 births Artists from New Mexico Institute of American Indian Arts alumni Rhode Island School of Design alumni Living people Santa Clara Pueblo people 20th-century Native Americans 21st-century Native Americans 21st-century American artists 21st-century American women artists 20th-century Native American women 21st-century Native American women