It seems fitting to feature artist Anna Louise Simpson this week, while the stock market crashes and crypto markets are in chaos…Miss AL Simpson’s latest work entitled “Glamour Scammers” essentially portrays a woman crying dollar signs.
She describes her work with this poem:
“Crying dollar signs, as crypto markets rise and fall.
Hidden identities, hiding true intentions.
Betting their bets on a beautiful racket.
Beware the siren call of the Glamour Scammers.
Oh, such an alluring deception…”
Miss AL Simpson is a Scottish multi-media artist, crypto artist, and writer who has a love of black ink and collage. Anna Louise grew up watching vintage movies, drawing from fashion magazines and books and uses those early faded glamorous influences in her practice.
What I love about Simpson’s work is that it is a clear portrayal of popular culture and an exploration of society’s vulnerabilities. She introduces images from antiquity and juxtaposes them with a glamour girl and graffiti. It’s a mess of the old and new; it’s brash and bold, like in her Cybaroque Borghese piece.
Drawing on influences such as Kippenberger and Rauschenberg, Anna Louise uses found items to build up a textured mixed media surface, in order to explore themes of societal trends. Layering her work with power and fragility; tales of passion and desire are exposed. At times, these stories are gentle whispers, at other times, they are loud megaphones. Fragmented portraits hidden in urban landscapes reveal an honesty and broken reality; a mixed-up version of the popular culture that submerges us all, as depicted in Old Money Corrupts XIV.
Miss AL Simpson is grateful for the introduction to crypto art and the NFT platforms that were interested in tokenizing her pieces. For her, it was what she had been seeking, as a divorced mother of two, living in Edinburgh, she was struggling.
“As a woman and a mother, the financial freedom that cryptoart offers as an artist to not be struggling to make ends meet is incredible and I think a lot of that’s been lost in some of the conversations about NFTs.”
Such a true statement that sometimes gets lost when most of what is reported in the media is about soaring NFT collections amongst rug pulls, and celebrities cashing in on the boom. The reality is that this medium has given creators so much more freedom to take control of their own destiny. NFTs have truly changed lives and given a platform for artists to get noticed around the globe. It has allowed them to take the risk of forging their own path, shedding their day job, and focusing solely on art.
Miss AL Simpson is an OG (Original Gangster) in the cryptoart world and has been creating historic pieces since 2019. She has made a significant mark on the early history of the cryptoart movement and has inspired many to follow in her footsteps.
She is a true pioneer of NFTS. Find her works on SuperRare, Nifty Gateway, Rarible, Known Origin and Opensea.
Article by: Iris Pearlman
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