C J Simpson
C J Simpson studied Painting at Camberwell College of Arts, going on to study his MA in sculpture at The Royal College of Art in London.
His sculptures are the persistent energy of unconscious and creative repetition. They are visual echoes, recorded in the meticulous refinement of the objects made and intense labour of craft, honed through shaping, painting, sanding, scraping, moulding and casting.
Sculptures appear to envelop and solidify around something that has long departed - the airy centre suspended like an inhaled breath. The sanded, marble-smooth surfaces reminiscent of renaissance iconography, bringing the spiritual to mind. There is movement and grace in his work. The surfaces and folds are as significant as what lies within when reading it, playing with what is hidden, revealed, and turned inside out. The use of monochrome focuses attention on a tension between form and abstraction, evident in enigmatic shape and specificity of material.
His ephemeral interventions and work in the landscape are vestigial signs or spirit of something that has passed - a tangible reminder in a fragment or remnant of what has been and gone. The work captures these traces, suggesting the memories of past events that have left scars in the landscape of the psyche.