C J Simpson

C J Simpson was born in Hannover, Germany, into a working working class, Scottish family.

He grew up in the south of England moving to London in 2003 to begin a career as a lead makeup artist, working for luxury fashion brands, Dior, Dolce e Gabana, Armani, Blue Marine, he worked on concerts, weddings, celebrities, photoshoots and ad campaigns, catwalks, trunk shows, travelling across the UK, Europe and the USA.

When he wasn't painting faces he was painting portraits and nudes before deciding to retire from the industry to focus on expanding his repertoire as an artist.

We are all wrapped in cloth from the moment we are born until the day we die.

We have a very personal relationship to it, it’s performative; we use it to identify ourselves, our religions, our jobs and even nationalities. It is loaded with symbolism and metaphors that I often explore through my work in a more deconstructed, defamiliarized way.

​Vestiges are the signs that something has passed - a tangible reminder in a fragment or remnant of what has been and gone. My work captures these traces, suggesting the memories of past events that have left scars in the landscape of the psyche, creating work haunted by loss or tragedy.

These traces defiantly remain against the impossibility of any return, a resilience of presence demanding expression, 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 the 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.