Artist Statement

Estelle Simpson (b. 2001, Leeds) is a figurative painter, writer and curator whose works are concerned with an intentionally internal dialogue: the sense of a haunting experience projected ineffably in smooth, careful oils. Finding her imagination liberated in the sensibility of painting, Simpson renders from her mind's eye imagery which is at once disquieting and delicate. In compositions eschewing life models and sitters, Simpson shifts between scales-intimate studies sit alongside fictitious figures portraited in life size.

Under Simpson’s meticulous brushwork, human, animal and object are at once alive: curtains bristle in windowless rooms; the scarlet velvets of an armchair breathe as deeply as the girls hunched atop their cushions. Drawing from the rich histories of Surrealist art, and the grammar of balletic performance, Simpson treats everyday minutiae with reverence. A kitten’s paw, a compact mirror, an untied bow: we glimpse motifs as they slide backstage, only to reappear on another canvas; costume-changed and dancing a new routine. With slender crops and flickering spotlights, Simpson’s compositions set an otherworldly stage for the pleasures and struggles we once thought we knew.