Strength in Motion

For the month of May, Speck Gallery will be exhibiting Johnson Simon and ROSEY's paintings. May is mental health awareness month, and this show, Strength In Motion, seeks to shed light on the barriers Simon and Rosey face individually and how art can help them work through them.

For Simon, who was born with a physical disability, art is a way of expressing movement. For ROSEY, who struggles with anxiety, depression, and OCD, his work is a way of distracting himself from what is going on in his internal world. 

Strength In Motion features paintings from each artist but is primarily composed of collaborative works that combine each artist's core message and come together in this expressive body of work. The two artists, who have been friends for years and even share a studio, describe collaborating as an "out-of-body experience.” 

"We come into the studio and talk about what's going on in our life." Says ROSEY. "He talks about his struggles that day or what's going on that week. And then we pick a color palette–Whatever colors we are feeling." 

"One thing about working with ROSEY is we bounce off each other's energy," Says Simon. "ROSEY will do a mark and then I'll paint based off of it– I enjoy how we don't even have to talk, we just get in the zone and allow the art piece to talk to us and we respond to it. When we get in the flow, our minds become one. What he lacks I fulfill, and what I lack he fulfills." Says Simon.

"It's a relationship being projected onto a body of work– It's deeper than us creating together, there's a dialogue behind it," Says ROSEY.

The two artists hope that Strength In Motion invites people to realize that other people struggle and that there are ways to express that. Simon and ROSEY are vulnerable in sharing their stories through Strength In Motion and encourage others to do the same.

This show can be viewed anytime in the Speck Gallery through the month of May, Monday - Friday from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m, and viewed and purchased on our online gallery through June.