Simpson has explored varieties of abstraction since the early 1950s, enjoying acknowledgement and success in the art world. In 1963 he was chosen by New York’s Museum of Modern Art curator, Dorothy Miller, to appear in what turned out to be the last in her legendary series of group shows of contemporary American art. (Reinhardt was another painter included.) And in 1964 he appeared in Clement Greenberg’s famous exhibition Post Painterly Abstraction at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. At that time Simpson painted landscape-derived abstractions and, in the 70s, he practiced a reductive but relational mode of abstraction. But with his discovery of a new acrylic medium in 1987, he was able to embrace finally and successfully the monochrome’s radicality.
Simpson uses an acrylic paint with interference properties. The paint is composed of titanium dioxide electronically coated with mica particles. Simpson tends to mix complementaries, but admits that orange and blue also work together well. He also mixes black acrylic with the interference pigments, finding that a little bit of black helps the colour jump out. Interference pigments cause optical effects that are comparable to iridescence. When you look at the painting from one angle, you receive one set of colour sensations. When you shift your position, you get another. As you move back and forth in front of the canvas – and the paintings make you want to do so – the experience changes. The change of light also dramatically affects the optical experience, and the play of light across the canvas surface is subtly kinetic.
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Works on canvas
Installations
Videos
Works on canvas
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Ryder 6, 1995
Acrylic on canvas
15 x 15 cm -
DOT, 2005
Acrylic on canvas
15 x 15 cm -
Little lava, 2003
Acrylic on canvas
15,5 x 15,5 x 6 cm -
C-Sharp, 2005
Acrylic on canvas
152,5 x 152,5 cm -
RESURECTION SHIFT, 1996
Acrylic on canvas
30,5 x 20,4 cm -
Loco Plum, 2001
Acrylic on canvas
114,5 x 81,5 x 6,5 cm -
An Arcady, An Elysium, 2001
Acrylic on canvas
190 x 140 x 6,5 cm -
An Elysium, A Beau Monde, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
190 x 140 x 6,5 cm -
Ides of May, 2014
Acrylic on canvas
101,5 x 101,5 x 6,5 cm -
Rosie Out Look, 2019
Acrylic on canvas
86 x 86 x 4,5 cm -
Dayglow, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
122 x 122 x 7 cm -
Rococò Ellipse, 2006
Acrylic on canvas
177 x 60 x 5 cm -
Eccentric polyplane #7, 1984
Acrylic on canvas on wood
30 x 30,2 x 5 cm -
Tri-square VII - converted - 0327S, 1986
Acrylic on canvas on wood
38 x 57 x 5 cm -
Eccentric monoplane: red shift - 0326S, 1984
Acrylic on canvas on wood
37 x 46 x 4,5 cm
Installations
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TORN CURTAIN, 2024
Installation view
Studio la Città, Verona -
CODICI, David Simpson - Marmi Romani, 2021
Installation view
Studio la Città, Verona -
CODICI, David Simpson - Marmi Romani, 2021
Installation view
Studio la Città, Verona -
Summer Show, 2016
Installation view
Studio la Città, Verona -
Wall toys for adults, 2016
Installation view
Studio la Città, Verona -
Installation view, 2016
Studio la Città at Arte Fiera, Bologna
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IN-FINITUM, 2009
Installation view
Palazzo Fortuny, Venezia -
David Simpson, 2008
Installation view
Studio la Città, Verona -
David Simpson, 2001
Installation view
Studio la Città, Verona
