Michael Simpson: ‘New Paintings’

Modern Art presents ‘New Paintings’, Michael Simpson’s first exhibition with the gallery and the first in London for five years.

Painting almost daily for over six decades, Simpson is renowned for probing both the formal mechanics of painting and in his own words, ​“the infamy of religious history”. He is best known for large paintings that repeat a small number of rigorously worked images, inspired by fifteenth century Venetian and early Flemish painting. In Simpson’s work, ladders, benches, and confessional boxes are reduced to geometric forms. Some of these objects levitate, others are rooted to the ground, casting shadows — all are depicted in a shallow space on a flat painted surface. His use of architectural objects, such as pulpits and Islamic minbars, confronts existential and political themes — uninhabited objects rendered potent symbols of authority.