a portrait artist
There’s a real element of irony to Simon’s story as to where we find him today. Imagine for a moment if you will, you’re told that you can’t do something you love and wish to pursue in life and the establishment at the time block your route and ambitions.
From a very young age, all that Simon wanted to do was draw. Something he felt so passionate about and wished to pursue in later life. So, imagine when the time came and he failed his art GSCE, only to be told that he couldn’t draw or even take an A Level in it to continue his dream. So where did that leave him then? Well, architectual design was the other choice. Simon was not armed with a pencil here though, more so with a computer and that’s not something you generally associate with potential artists wanting to use and create with.
“I failed art at GCSE, all I wanted to do was draw but wasn’t allowed to”
This route for Simon was not what he wanted at all, if fact he felt pushed into it. I guess this route was a means to an end at the time. It gave him a salary, paid the mortgage but it certainly didn’t give him any sense of achievement or creativeness. I can’t imagine how he must of felt throughout all of those years. A budding artist waiting to unleash his hidden talent and what a talent I might add. Today, ten years on from that time in his life, he’d sooner forget, he now finds himself in a much better place and about to unleash his incredible portrait work on a much larger audience.
I really am utterly astonished at the quality of work that Simon creates and achieves with the simplest of tools (pencils and charcoal in his case) in the outstanding portraits he produces.
The homeless mans eyes just cut into you and you can see his pain reflected in Simon’s depiction of him. Then there’s his drawing of Robert De Niro which was taken from a photo of him by a very well known US photographer. A typical De Niro expression that personifies the great man and is captured so well in pencil and charcoal. Simon has now seen a change in direction within his work by moving away from the pencil and moving further towards the use of charcoal.
All of the images I shot the day I visited Simon where shot on black & white film for a reason and this was the first time I’ve done so on this project. Why you ask, well, Simon clearly loves working in black and white and the agreement we both made that day was to shoot it that way.
We both love the contrast and grain that film brings, that digital never will and it’s real.
There have been other areas to Simons work in the past but portrait work is where he feels most comfortable and gets the best out of what he does so well. Thanks Simon
