Michael Simpson
Bench Paintings
Recent Work 2005 -2006
18 January- 4 March 2007

David Risley Gallery is delighted to present Michael Simpson’s first show in London since his solo exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in 1986.

Simpson was born in 1940 to a Russian Jewish Mother and Romany gypsy Father.
He has been working on a series of large paintings relating to the same atheist theme since1989. He calls them ‘Bench paintings’. They relate originally to his intense interest in the infamy of religious history and in particular to the renegade mediæval philosopher Giordano Bruno who, after enduring eight years of torture and interrogation by the Inquisition, was burnt at the stake in Rome’s Campo dei Fiori (the Field of Flowers).

The gallery will be rebuilt to house four of these monumental paintings, the scale of which gives them an austere architectural presence. These new ‘Bench paintings’, introduce different elements to the series. In two of the paintings the benches float, hovering in an unidentified void beneath Roman wreaths. Space is less defined than in previous paintings, where the illusion of an interior fix the bench in a recognisable, yet unspecified place. In these recent paintings only cast shadow locates the benches.

Michael Simpson has increasingly come to regard these works as Vanitas paintings. The bench serves as a metaphor of endless waiting, with its associations of confinement, alienation, restraint and industrialised death; it is a place where justice and injustice are administered.

In this way the paintings can be considered as meditations on death. Although the work is clearly contemporary its main influences originate from 15th century Venetian and early Flemish painting. The bench also serves as a fixed, coherent form within the paintings. A structure through which Simpson explores the pure language of painting – form, colour, composition – through imagery without figures yet implying a profound human presence.

Simpson’s first solo show was at Piccadilly Gallery in 1964. He has since exhibited continuously including solo shows at Arnolfini, Bristol and Serpentine Gallery, London. His work is included in several public and private collections including Arts Council England, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Stuyvesant Foundation, Netherlands.