Jane Simpson: Fresh Fresher

"Fresh, Fresher" is a monograph on the work of British artist Jane Simpson. It is a celebration of her career since 1992 when, while still a student, she first experimented with the use of ice and her now trademark refrigeration technique. Rather than following a strict chronological order the book surveys Simpson's work thematically, punctuated by three critical texts. An introduction by Royal Academy Exhibitions Secretary, Norman Rosenthal, and essays by the Director of Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, Ulrike Groos, and Mark Godfrey of the Slade School of Art, London, place the artist's work in a broader art historical context. By positioning the pieces in abstract perspectives of vivid colour, the book's design accentuates the pastel tones and shades that, as in her rubber casts of kitchen utensils or photographs of Tupperware, Simpson characteristically uses in her work.
"Fresh, Fresher" takes its title from Simpson's sculpture of a pair of vases with roses in different stages of bloom, a work she based around two paintings by Italian painter Giorgio Morandi. A variation on the classical tradition of still life, this piece (2000) exemplifies the underlying themes invariably present in the artist's work to date: the process of appropriation and transformation, and the dialectics of decay and renewal.