Martyn Simpson
They invoke the aesthetics of pop art, handicraft and camouflage and invite their surfaces to be caressed as well as looked at.
Martyn Simpson’s paintings are made using household gloss paint and OSB or ‘Sterling Board’. This low cost sheet material is commonly used to board up broken windows or as hoardings on building sites. Simpson is a fan of the great American abstract painters such as Barnet Newman, Kenneth Noland and Frank Stella, but he also has a liking for D.I.Y home improvement and constantly refers to motifs found in interior detailing such as dado rails and cornicing.
The designs for his paintings are worked up in
Photoshop using digital images of his raw
boards. Simpson painstakingly lassoes
chains of particles of wood, from which
Sterling Board is made, to define patterns,
stripes, bands and pools of colour. These
designs are then transferred to the physical
board and are blocked in with the
high gloss paint.
The resulting paintings are sometimes casually leaned against walls like yet unused building material or are strategically placed to offset their surroundings. They invoke the aesthetics of pop art, handicraft and camouflage and invite their surfaces to be caressed as well as looked at.
Pictured above:
Installation at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland © Martyn Simpson