Francesca Simon

I make paintings. An instinct for geometry and pattern-making, combined with a fascination for three-dimensional effects worked onto the flat plane of the canvas, typify my practice. My most recent works are painted on aluminium, which has led to a more general change of approach to surface. Metal supports have long been used by artists and the smooth flatness necessarily requires a particular method of working: a need to organise in advance, spontaneity ceding to calculation and precision. Part of this is that some of the aluminium surface is left unpainted, a critically important part of the painting as the surface reflects light unlike a linen or cotton duck canvas. There is an interplay between the pale reflecting shapes, and those that are painted. The resulting work does not directly represent a subject. By agitating the surface, the painting tends to extend into the space between the viewer and the painting, which creates a mood or non-representational response to a precise external experience.

My way into abstraction was through the topography and field shapes of North Yorkshire and, although my work is no longer a direct response to landscape, the sharp corners of geometric shapes still correspond to fields enclosed by ...

2009 – 2010 Central Saint Martins MA Fine Art
2002 – 2005 City & Guilds of London Art School BA Fine Art
1998 – 2000 Heatherley School of Fine Art Diploma in Portraiture
1972 – 1975 University of Cambridge, Newnham College BA
AWARDS AND COLLECTIONS
2010 Cass Art Painting Prize
2004 Skinners Company Travel Award
Paintings in the Government Art Collection, the Sayer Collection, the Cass Art collection, City & Guilds Institute collection, at Newnham College and in private collections

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018 Looking Down, Platform A, Middlesbrough
2015 Navigations, Ryedale Folk Museum
2014 Site Lines, Beardsmore Gallery, London
2012 Taking Shape, Beardsmore Gallery, London

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Small is Beautiful XXXVIII, Flowers online
2020 Small is Beautiful Summer Edition,
Flowers online
2019 8 Lines, Platform A Gallery, Middlesbrough
2019 Unfinished Business, Newcastle University
2018 Small is Beautiful XXXVI, Flowers Gallery, London
2018 Work by alumnae, Newnham College
2018 Manchester Contemporary Art Fair, Platform A
2018 London Art Fair, Islington, Beardsmore Gallery
2017 Small is Beautiful XXXV, Flowers Gallery, London
2017 Manchester Contemporary Art Fair, Platform A
2017 Neo-Geometry, New Art Centre, Roche Court
2017 Mono, Flowers East, London
2017 London Art Fair, Islington, Beardsmore Gallery
2016 Turps Gallery Summer Mix, London
2016 The Tim Sayer Bequest: A Private Collection Revealed, The Hepworth Wakefield
2016 London Art Fair, Islington, Beardsmore Gallery
2015 London Art Fair...