Simon Turner - Open Studios

Beautiful, colourful, figurative paintings displayed with Simon's collages and drawings. Simon will be working on a new drawing during Open Studios.

Simon Turner is an artist who celebrates people’s idiosyncrasies. Set against flat planes of colour and confined within closely cropped compositions, the people within the work have a surreal, timeless quality. Simon uses the image of a kiosk to create an interaction between two people: you, the viewer and the figure portrayed in the work of art. By looking at the painting, the viewer completes it.

The works explore basic human interactions, social awkwardness and its potential reverberations, as Albert Camus said, “Nobody realises that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal”.

Simon’s magpie eye collects not just the archive photos, news articles, and recipe cards that are meticulously painted, but the vintage papers, card, and wood he paints and draws on. When these materials are assembled, they form a narrative of his experiences and interests.
This collective process is an integral part of the imagery. Simon works with collage and drawing both as a discipline and as an exploratory process that feeds into his paintings.

For this year’s Open Studios, Simon will be creating new drawings, offering an opportunity to see how the artist works.