Carlie Simpkin is a multidisciplinary practitioner interested in depression as a subject. She builds a visual language through various forms drawn from her knowledge of the illness. Photography, text-based images, readymade objects, sculptural forms and sound are often amalgamated in complex ways to form the work. This work tends to juxtapose deep sadness with coping mechanisms such as humour or satire, in such a way that the work could be viewed as a tragic comedy. In some works, she attempts to simulate the feelings of depression as accurately as possible, in others she creates metaphors which get to the core symptoms and open up a wider discussion about mental health.
Simpkin is fascinated with the 'invisible' nature of psychological pain, and is fuelled by a desire to make these issues somehow easier to comprehend. She believes that the capacity for language can easily be destroyed when in pain, and thus physical and mental wounds risk being neglected; untreated and undiagnosed.
Simpkin is fascinated with the 'invisible' nature of psychological pain, and is fuelled by a desire to make these issues somehow easier to comprehend. She believes that the capacity for language can easily be destroyed when in pain, and thus physical and mental wounds risk being neglected; untreated and undiagnosed.
