Dynamism by Simon William
Bold, dynamic colour is the focus of this new collection of paintings by Simon Williams at Vitreous Contemporary Art this month.
Williams' imagery creates a magnitude, an ambiance and a reality that result in a work imbued with exuberance aimed straight at the heart. What qualifies his work is its composite anatomy, its language in the construction of images, in the showdown between colour and form, character and harmony.
Williams' uses shockingly bright colours coupled with simple forms; in one painting, Pairs, he makes thick bars of colour that interlock with a monochrome circle. The juxtaposition of colour and form is precise and meticulous and is clearly built up intuitively.
By contrast another painting, Crucible, is an explosion, a surging riot of colour. Sometimes the strokes are heavy and clearly defined and at others the paint is spattered on the canvas so as to belie the exacting direction of the main body and throw it off course. There is nothing uncertain about this painting either, it like many other of Williams' paintings is deeply instinctive.
His works are happy and dramatic bravura flourishes. The kind of celebratory painting that seems to possess the power of one's first experiences of something new and exciting. The paintings may be apropos to the wider world, but they do not try to epitomise it. Instead his large, joyous canvases are an exhilarating acknowledgement of life itself. Describing his own work and processes Williams says, “Strong colours and strident marks are for me the very essence of what I enjoy about painting. I'm fascinated by the juxtaposition of marks the spatial complexity that is created as some colours come forward and others recede. I would liken the process of painting to developing a kind of vocabulary of intuitive mark making, using shapes/forms and colours which hold a particular innate resonance. When I place a mark on the canvas it compels a response to balance a colour or form to agitate or calm.” Jake Bose, Vitreous Contemporary Art |
