'Colour Pop' Exhibition: Simon Kirk

"The main pieces in this exhibition are works I'd had in my personal collection for a couple of years. Lockdown meant I began working from home and I spent a lot of time re-assessing the works I had around me. The more I spent looking at the artworks I realised they would benefit from a device that would encourage the viewer to take a closer look. As with much of my work I feel there is a lot of visual information and aesthetic that is missed in cursory viewing. I hit upon the idea of mimicking a microscope - the circles across the piece urge the viewer to get closer and examine the artwork thoroughly.

From this starting point, I began working across multiple pieces and the collection built up from there. The circles added dynamism and movement to the piece; they became pills, dispersions of light or haloes, sun circles that dance across the artwork. This playful energy led me to add more and more details - I added arrows to 'annotate' the work, characters gained crowns to make them kings and previously drab skulls were given a make-over of mexican wrestling masks. In some pieces, dogs keep watch and children play around newly added houses. They became a slice of the old life outside for someone who had begun to miss the simple joys of everyday life." - Simon Kirk

"In the work I created for this exhibition, I've predominantly used a wax transfer technique rather than the cut and paste of collage. I scanned the various elements of collage I wanted to use onto a computer then printed them out onto wax paper, which I then applied to the surface of the artwork. It's a lo-fi printing technique that I'm very much taken with at the moment. It echoes the acetone photocopy printing I did a lot of in my early career (a technique that is hard to recreate these days, with the inks used by modern photocopiers). There is a theme of layers in my work, both literally in the way I layer paint and 'collaged' elements but also in terms of the narrative. By pairing text and image I want to create playful connections that are both illogical and insightful; meaning is inherent but impossible to pin down precisely. I'm drawn to the idea of 'the Absurd' - the human tendency to search for meaning in life and the inability to find it. In this way I feel my work shares common ground with haiku and the search for profound meaning in modest things; taking the wonder of everyday life and subverting it into something unpredictable and evocative."

- Simon Kirk