Simon Birch (UK/Hong Kong)
Simon Birch’s dramatic large-scale portraits are breathtaking in their scale and sophistication. With a refined treatment of tone color and astute awareness of textural rhythms, the award-winning Hong Kong based painter and multimedia artist’s new oils on canvas dazzle and excite in their glorious portrayal of fluid human motion and fragmented emotional states.
Born in Brighton in 1969, Simon’s entry into the formal art world is singular. With no conventional training, he was encouraged by his parents to develop his early promise and, upon moving to Hong Kong in the mid-nineties, made his living as a construction worker until he had secured the means to fully pursue his artistic goals and even finance his first exhibitions.
Over time, Simon has created a deeply personal style which fuses striking figuration with abstract deconstruction. His ability to identify, shape, amplify and reduce raw physical and internal passion stems from an early interest in the works of Caravaggio, Rothko and Basquiat, but with a bold, distinctive approach that signals his importance as one of the most important emerging painters of his generation. Mesmerizing in their complexity, Simon’s works envelop the viewer and invite them to participate and interpret for themselves what lies within the rich layers of pigmentation and explosive subject matter.
From his early self-produced productions to the gallery shows that have followed, Simon has garnered enormous attention in regional and international media and cultivated a solid extended network of collectors and enthusiasts.
