WORKS is about the hidden forces that remain long after we are gone, and shape things to come. Consequently, these works draw our attention to natural and discarded resources as something to be cherished.
Choice and playfulness are central to Simon’s practice. Creating series from different bodies of found wood - branches, driftwood, fallen trees and discarded pallets - its state when encountered informs his artistic process. Like the rings of a tree trunk, its former life is never completely erased. His Jewel series partially discloses the face of driftwood; reclaimed trunks stripped of their bark and turned on a giant wheel become totemic kings and queens; the splintering planks of pallets are spliced, diced and sprayed with colours that relate more to the countries which consign them than to their forests of origin. His Sprite series conceals branches beneath layers of paint and quicksilver - fallen limbs carried by wind and rain into the river and down to the sea where they drift, tumble and turn in the waves. Eventually they are returned to the beach - stripped of life - strewn like bones.
To Allison, these beautiful bare limbs are like gifts, waiting to be collected.
“Carried across time, they are a perfect metaphor for the cycle of life and as such deserve to be adorned, and cherished."
- Excerpt from 'Metousiosis' catalogue essay by Nico Kos Earle, Essay available here.
Please join us for the Private View
Friday 12 May from 6 - 9pm
RSVP to lockbund@live.co.uk
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Exhibition continues
13 - 21 May, Open daily, 10am - 4pm
Oxfordshire Art Weeks (Site 176)
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