The National's Man Painting

Simkins is a British artist living and working in Paris and London. He works in painting, collage and interactive performance. Throughout his work he rearranges images to create fictional narratives. By interweaving stories and fabricating new narratives, his work dissects, reenacts and comments on society’s attitudes towards fact and fiction. Meanwhile, his performances interrogate how these attitudes affect human interaction. THE HEADS There are numerous ways today, through both old media and new, that society builds it's own interpretations of a person and manages to pigeon-hole them. The Collaged Heads explore the imaginary statuses that society projects onto others.  Often large in size but created from cut, torn and frayed canvas, the Heads are able to accentuate both the subject’s godliness and fragility at the same time.  The trial of athlete Oscar Pistorius, whom the artist met and painted in 2011, is an eery reminder of how an individual can go from hero to zero in a matter of days, as well as the role that society plays in advancing both sides of the coin. With the representation feeling easily disposable, Patrick hands the onus over to the public in his interactive performance Three Heads. The artist asks the public to tear the work apart and then reconstruct it as they so wish. Issues of morality, celebrity and human fragility are all raised. As well as the hypothesis that greatness is ultimately flawed. Throughout both performances, Patrick is able to place the public within the concept itself by asking his audiences to recreate their own metaphorical actions into physical ones.  In studying how our society is becoming more individualist, Patrick manages to bring people closer together. ……………………………………………………………………….. PAINTINGS - To see the other side of Patrick’s practice, head to