2026
runner magazine
Bowing in Reverence of ‘Natural Stories’
Lisa John Rogers
August 10, 2026
From the street looking into the new Common Ground Flower Park in Detroit’s Core City, two sculptures tilt toward one another in this type of reverence. Just as the boughs of the trees above them seem to bend toward one another, creating an inviting entrance or archway. The installation titled Natural Stories marries the flora and human fauna in a sort of shrine to the city’s wilderness.
A winding gravel path splits the two sculptures and guides people from the street, past a wildflower meadow, beyond the arbored archway, and into the park — where there are circular cement benches peppered under shade from the trees. At once a contemplative and collaborative place; the artists Simone DeSousa and Bilge Nur Saltik worked with neighbors and members of the Grand River Block club to create this installation.
2016
Hyperallergic
Meditative, Modernist Canvases Inspired by Brasília’s Architecture
Sarah Rose Sharp
June 1, 2016
The works are hung in relation to each other; sometimes individual works stand alone or in series, but more often a collection of pieces amount to a single idea. Often, DeSousa will introduce a base concept — titled after principles within Buddhism, such as “Base, Path, and Fruit,” “The Jewel in the Lake,” or “The Secret Path” — and then break it down into a sub-series. These series are arranged on walls dividing the usually wide-open, high-ceilinged main floor of Holding House into more intimate spaces, and force a consideration of not only each canvas, but its relation to the others in its cluster, and crucially, the space between and around them. The arrangements are clearly very literal and significant to DeSousa, though she remains ultimately detached regarding the viewer experience.
2016
Detroit Art Review
Architecture of the Soul in a Serendipitous Space
Clara DeGalan
May 10, 2016
“Calculating with Absence” is installed, and should be viewed, from the roots up. The denser, slightly older works installed in Holding House’s lower level comprise a sort of prima materia which bursts, on the gallery’s main floor, into a constellation of airier, more succinct works that take the viewer on a meditative journey through space, silence, and the evocative, multivalent power of the gesture which stands alone.