David W. Simpson

David W. Simpson is a printmaker, sculptor, and installation artist based in Seattle, Washington. Simpson uses artifacts marked by the passage of time— both natural and man-made detritus—in his sculptural and printmaking practices, transforming them into contemporary statements. While working with a range of processes, materials, and aesthetics, Simpson’s work is unified by a graphic immediacy and the artist’s practice of gathering found objects to repurpose into art. A daily ritual is to walk along the beach just steps from home in search of driftwood or plywood pieces degraded by the waves, which he uses to make his relief prints, cyanotypes and serigraph series.

For his “Beach Structures,” driftwood is crafted into elaborate sculptures and placed on specially treated paper to create brilliant blue cyanotype photograms. The image forms as the cyanotype is exposed by the sun, creating a striking imprint from the sculpture’s shadow. The unique textures of weathered wood grain and minimalist tendencies take center stage in “Beach Composites.” With the “Anuncios Espectaculares” series, Simpson documents decomposing billboard in Mexico, reducing them to black and white skeletons, which he further embellishes with collage fragments of discarded advertising messages.

Simpson received a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design from the School of Fine Arts and Design of Iowa State University. He was awarded a 4 Culture Individual Artist Project Grant in Seattle in 2012, and in 2014 was included in the Tacoma Art Museum’s Ink This! Contemporary Print Arts in the Northwest. His work is in the collections of Neiman Marcus, University of Washington Medical Center, Madewell, and private collections in the U.S., Mexico, Brazil and Taiwan. He has been a visiting artist at the University of Washington, Western Washington University and University of Puget Sound and is an instructor for printmaking workshops in the Northwest. He has had public art installations in Downtown Seattle and at the Alki Bathhouse.