Simon Houlton

It’s a challenge to write an artist’s CV, in fact it’s a challenge to write any kind of CV as I have bounced around between so many jobs in my life in so many different sectors. I painted and drew obsessively as a child. It was my art teacher's hope that I would attend the Royal Academy of arts in London. As it happens I never applied, but I continued to paint until around the age of 24, at which point life struggles led to me taking a twenty year hiatus. It is only these last five years or so that this obsession has returned, but now more focused and more intense with a lifetime of experiences to express.

Certainly I haven’t had any formal artistic training or spent years at art school training to mimic the styles of the great masters, in fact that concept is the opposite of what inspires me. I did drop out of art school a few times in the 90’s, partly due to not wanting to take the arduous walk to the art college along the seafront in the winter rain, partly due to costs, and partly due to an inability to fit in. Even in a room full of aspiring artists I was still an outsider. Still a pariah.

I am autodidactic, not just in terms of painting but in terms of my approach to life, I am a person who wants to make my own mistake...