Michael Simpson (painter)

Michael Simpson (born 1940) is a British painter. Simpson has had major solo shows at the Serpentine (1985),[1] the Arnolfini (1996),[2] Spike Island (2016),[3] and BlainSouthern (2017), and in 2016 won the John Moores Painting Prize for his painting Squint (19).[4]

Michael Simpson
Born1940 (age 82–83)
Dorset
NationalityBritish
EducationArts University Bournemouth, Royal College of Art
Known forPainter
AwardsJohn Moores Painting Prize

Career

Born in Dorset of Anglo-Russian parents, he attended Bournemouth College of Art (1958–60) and the Royal College of Art (1960–63).[5] Simpson makes large scale paintings in ongoing series. These often repeat and rework a number of subjects and elements. Simpson's influences includes early Flemish painting, and his painting style incorporates minimalism and other types of formal restraints.[6] He describes his approach to painting as a "deceptive force of the constructed image."

In Vitamin P3, a guide to contemporary painting, critic Barry Schwabsky described Simpson’s ‘allegiance to a conception more readily associated with abstraction than with painting that employs images’. He goes on to describe the artist’s preoccupation with “the idea that painting is not a kind of imaginary opening in the wall through which we get an illusory view of another world, but rather a physical thing that is made, whose flat surface confronts the viewer with a presence that demands engagement.”

Simpson has served as lecturer in several British Art Schools and Universities, and has been featured in various documentaries including "Odyssey of a Painter" (Louisiana Channel Documentary). He currently lives and works in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire.

National collections

Awards
  • John Moores (2016)
  • Winner of the London Arts Foundation Fellowship (1999)
  • John Moores 17 (1991)
  • Tolly Cobbald Open (1977)

Notes and references
  1. "Michael Simpson Paintings". Serpentine Gallery. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  2. "Michael Simpson - Bench Paintings". Serpentine Gallery. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  3. "Michael Simpson - Flat Surface Painting". Spike Island Artspace. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  4. "John Moores 2016". Walker Art Gallery. 2017. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  5. Wright, Karen (16 August 2013). "In the studio: Michael Simpson, painter". The Independent. Archived from the original on 14 May 2022. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  6. "ArtReview September 2017". Art Review. Retrieved 20 November 2017.
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