Robert Simpson.

Born in 1955, Robert Simpson has been a full time Australian artist since his first exhibition in 1977.

Robert began his career as a realist, plein-air Australian landscape painter, however in the mid 80’s, he found himself working on a style that was no longer able to convey the concepts he was drawn to: namely, the relationship between man and nature. Increasingly concerned with the state of imbalance in this relationship, his practice evolved from realism to metaphor and symbolism.

Robert often depicts familiar man-made objects that act as symbols and metaphors of man himself, placed in or on a ‘landscape field’, implied by means of colour and texture rather than the actual depiction of a familiar landscape. Whilst Robert’s work comments mainly on the disparity between the supply of nature and the demand of human advancement, the symbolic implications of the various manmade objects differ. Balloons that float serenely across the devastated landscapes (Ascension Theory) are metaphors of human fragility in the face of declining natural abundance. Icarus (After Icarus & After Icarus - Fall), reference the well known myth to comment on the scale of human ambition and creativity, yet are a reminder not to pursue scientific and technical advancement at the cost of our natural resources.

Robert Simpson’s catalogue of works are political and complex in their underlying concerns, yet gentle and visually beautiful in the delivery of their rather weighty messages. They captivate, absorbing the viewer completely in their immediate ambiguity, which gives way to an understanding of their meaning as the symbols become apparent.