William Simpson

About William
Born in Metropolis and raised in Smallville.
William is often described as difficult, individualistic, unusual, rebellious and notoriously self-effacing.
An individual who offers very little in the way of explanation about himself or his work, allowing the work to speak directly to the viewer based solely on its own merits.
Through the use of branding, consumer culture and the popular past.
William ruminates on our modern world through the filtered lens of the perpetually fading past.
He uses only original, authentic sourced vintage materials and ephemera like those from the mythical, sweet and hope filled innocence of the 1940's & 1950’s, from the polarising, turbulent, rapid change and violent upheaval of the 1960’s and from the gritty, sweat stained, dirty broken boulevards and dangerous mean streets of the 1970’s and 1980’s.
William borrows from the past in an ongoing dialog and struggle to recreate, reassemble, rearrange and reimagine, who we are, where we have been and where we may be going.
He chronicles, celebrates, interferes, alters and yes, antagonises, creating with a new and original voice in contemporary painting that is anchored in heritage, tradition and the idea of freedom.
William believes that Art is generous. 

He believes that Art can be anything we want, anything we like and anything that we feel we need. 
 
His style is simple but his work is complex.
It is a celebration, a cerebral interpretation, a reinvention, an exploration and an examination of our human connections.
He examines everything, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the high ideals we so rarely achieve.

William's work can be found in many notable fine art collections around the world including the USA, Great Britain, Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Canada & Australia to name a few.

Style, Technique & Medium
William’s paintings are painstakingly hand-crafted in the studio.
Beginning with the construction of each custom museum wood panel.
Each panel’s multi-layered analog collage is hand-cut and hand applied, layer upon layer over the entire surface and sides of the panel. The collage work is created using only original vintage sourced material and vintage printed paper ephemera with varying mixed elements of hand drawn illustration, acrylic and oil paints, graffiti spray paint, hand-cut aerosol stencil applications, hand pulled silkscreen printing, typography and innovative acrylic polymer photographic transfer techniques.
Each panel is then finished with a hand poured and hand applied UV epoxy resin coating.
His deeply textured multi-layered analog collage artworks are rendered with his signature style and process that gives them their own unique historical, aged and authentic worn faded aesthetic, this technique gives each painting the appearance and the illusion of having had a very long previous life and a history like a long ago forgotten, lonely and abandoned roadside billboard or a lost, neglected, broken and blinking neon sign buzzing out on the perimeter.