John Simpson Answers FAD’s Questions
1. When did you first think of yourself as an artist?
I probably thought myself an artist doing scribbled drawings as a child but there’s certainly a change in self-awareness when your work begins to find a place in the wider world. This process started for me in the first years following graduation.
2. Did you get much support and encouragement from home or school?
My direct family were never involved with visual arts but have always supported me in whatever I choose to do. I remember my parents were determined I’d have strong interests outside of school. After I nearly drowned during a failed attempt to get me into their shared passion of sailing they helped me to find my own way! I went to a particularly forward thinking school which allowed us time to explore our interests, which for me at that time were ceramics and sculpture.
3. What was your art college experience like?
After a particularly engaging foundation course with enthusiastic and talented students all around at what is now the University of Gloucestershire, I found the early part of my degree at the Cambridge School of Art rather a disappointing experience. The later part of my time in Cambridge was a complete contrast with a great studio environment and fantastic tutors. I spent a lot of time there trying to invent new ways of working by combining unlikely media – I guess this fascination with process is still apparent in my work now.
4. When do you feel you developed your distinctive style?
I began experimenting with Monotypes during the last year of my degree. I don’t really like to think of myself as having a style but I’d say my current approach to work developed when I was working in London over the five years following university.
5. Which other artists have influenced you?
I’m always drawn to great mark making. I find many sculptors drawings fascinating too – the drawing that exists to serve another work or is a two dimensional feeling of an object or being. Giacometti would be a good example of all these things. Other primary influences would be Anselm Kiefer, Avigdor Arikha, Rauschenberg, Munch and Goya.
6. When did you start to produce monotype prints?
I first started doing basic Montypes as a tool to liberate my drawings in last months of my degree. That was back in 1998.
7. Why does this medium interest you?
It’s a great combination of the plasticity of oil paint, the delicacy of graphite or charcoal and the unpredictability of other printmaking forms and film photography.
8. Have you worked in any other media?
I’ve tried most things. Last year I was lucky enough to be invited to work in a fantastic Lithographic workshop in Sao Paulo. After my experience there I’d love to experiment more with Lithography.
9. How do you see your style and technique developing?
That’s something that happens naturally with work and time. I’m looking forward to working in new mediums over the next year. I do have to be careful not to be seduced by processes. I’ve been carried away before and it’s important for me to retain the freshness of the mark making and the original idea.
10. Are you inspired mainly by ideas and concepts?
I’m inspired by a huge range of things from studies in animal behaviour to just being surrounded by nature. I may use a scientific idea or concept as a starting point for a work but the emotion of the piece is dictated by many other factors which could come from literature or art history.
11. Many of your works involve animals or anthropomorphic elements. Why is this?
I’ve only ever wanted to draw what is natural; what moves and changes. The activity of studying something man-made or static would feel very alien to me. There are no ideas more fascinating or fundamental than how man has developed on earth and forgotten his animal nature. The juxtaposition of humans with other animals in my work is not intended to anthropomorphise these creatures but to highlight our origins and the imbalance we’ve created in the environment.
12. Are you a full time artist?
Yes. I left my last job in 2006 and went straight to Canada to spend some good time in the mountains. It was an extremely liberating experience.
13. What is your working routine? Are you a steady worker or a deadline junky?
There’s very little time when I’m not thinking about ideas and images, but I’m afraid deadlines always help when it comes to finishing a body of work.
14. How do you see your career developing over the next ten years?
I have a tendency to believe that my latest piece should be more successful than any other previous work. This is of course an unrealistic expectation, but as long as I find greater satisfaction in the work as it develops then this must be a good thing. One of the highlights of my career so far was being invited to Brazil by Galeria Choque Cultural where I met some amazing people and artists. The trip was an incredibly rich experience so I’d love the opportunity to travel and show more work internationally.
15. Which artist, from any age, would you most like to meet?
Goya. He would have the experience of a classical painter with the vision of a modern artist engaging with the world.
16. Any views about the contemporary art scene?
The art world is a very fragmented place, so it’s impossible to make observations which apply universally. It wouldn’t be healthy for an artist like me to be involved too deeply in any scene. I think it’s a shame success often seems to be driven by the media and the artists who benefit are likely to be the least genuine and interesting. As a printmaker I find the sale of digital reproduction prints as ‘limited edition original prints’ very frustrating. Unfortunately some dealers and artists are taking advantage of the buyers misunderstanding. I’m positive that we are now at the beginning of an exciting time following the economic changes and there will be less work focused on pop and celebrity and more work of far greater integrity and significance.
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