* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Simon Monk received a BFA from Camberwell in 1989. He is now a full-time practicing artist, after several years’ writing and lecturing in Art History at various colleges around London.
His latest series, of objects in bags, initially arose from an interest in scale and representation. Despite being depicted exactly life size, the subjects themselves present a dislocation of scale characteristic of toys and models, ranging from enlarged insects to radically miniaturised dinosaurs.
This series and previous ones have been informed by interests and concerns such as the use of ephemera and overlooked objects, the exploration of illusion and the inescapably fictional nature of images, the uneasy relationship between the exotic and the banal, and whether it is possible to view the past without nostalgia.
Each painting is slowly and gradually built up from many thin, translucent layers of paint over a number of months. The subjects are painted directly from life rather than photographs in an attempt to represent the subjects with simple clarity and truthful illusion.
Since his return to painting five years ago he have exhibited in open exhibitions such as the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the Discerning Eye as well as various group shows and international art fairs. He was recently selected to exhibit in East Wing Ten at the Courtauld Institute.
