Danny Simmons: The Journey to Everything, a solo museum exhibition at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture in Baltimore, MD, is reviewed in BmoreArt by Dora Marke.
"The title of the exhibition and its painting, The Journey to Everything, is both preface to the show and an enjambed line of poetry, to use a poetic term for an unfinished thought that flows into the next line, but that could stand on its own. (Simmons is a working poet with five collections and one on the way.) The artist is inviting you, not to consume the art, but to participate in bringing it to life.
The title prepares us for the plenitude to come: collages on paper and canvas, with juxtaposed dots of paint and Ankara fabric, Bogolan mud cloth from Mali, paper cutouts of visible and partially visible faces, Congolese bark cloth, neon lace, gestural lines, and splashes of color on single frames and triptychs."
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"James Cavello’s curation is a richly annotated, viewer-centric offering of clues and keys for a first-time viewer of Simmons’ work, who has been painting since the 1990’s after he left a career in social work. The paintings on view in The Journey to Everything date from 2021 – 2024, yet there is a retrospective depth to the curation that allows for a peering into what animates the artist’s process."
- Dora Marke
