Art: Alex Simpson's sculptures tell a hauntingly beautiful story

“Childhood is a place I long to return – a place of safety and comfort, where I exist happy; careless; fearless; unencumbered by adult experience.” Through her explorations of fear, loss and the unknown, shown through her wistful sculptures, artist Alex Simpson leaves us in limbo, uncertain whether we are taken by her works’ complete beauty or haunted by the ominous air that cloaks it. Yet it is hard not to be drawn in by their delicacy, the sculpture’s sunken eyes and curious features luring us into a menacing world where creatures of nightmares exist.

Nostalgia is unavoidable. Playing with a collision of emotions, the desire and mourning for the innocence and naivety of childhood with the strength and anxieties provoked by adult fears and experiences, they toy with our own intuition; despite confronted by our own disjointed emotions, we can’t help but want to be in their company.

And these themes are considered across painting and print too (her most recent series Der Ring des Nibelungen soon to be available from Victory Press). All three mediums working as though in dialogue with the artist, Alex leaves each one some freedom for its own course, seeing the gouache and ink bleeding or the glazes that cover her sculpture moving as though paint.