“It is hard enough to do the job of painting without loading it up too much with meaning.” — Michael Simpson

Michael Simpson is Winner of the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize 2016.

Flat Surface Painting is the first comprehensive catalogue of the distinguished British artist’s work to date.

Rooted in a fascination with fifteenth century Venetian and early Flemish Painting, and inflected by the formal restraint and reduced palette of Minimalism, Simpson has developed a distinctive, darkly comedic artistic vocabulary with which to create works that move beyond their subject matter to question the nature of painting itself.

Born in 1940, as a student at the Royal College of Art in the 1960s, Simpson shared a room with David Hockney.

The artist taught at Corsham Art College for many years and his students included a younger generation of celebrated British painters such as Glenn Brown and Clare Woods.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Flat Surface Painting at Spike Island, Bristol, 16 January — 27 March 2016.