Paradise Lost, 2016, oil on canvas, 91 x 91cm
Out of Sight, 2017, oil on canvas, 91 x 91cm
Jungle to Jungle, 2016, oil on canvas, 91 x 91cm
Post Natural, 2017, oil on canvas, 91 x 91cm
Fractured Canopy, 2017, oil on canvas, 91 x 91cm
Hideaway, 2017, oil and wax on canvas, 91 x 91cm
Paradise Arcade, 2017, oil on canvas, 91 x 91cm
Deep Forest, 2017, oil on canvas, 91 x 91cm
Heart of Darkness, 2017, oil on canvas, 81 x 63cm
Wish You Were Here, 2017, oil on canvas, 71 x 56cm
Currently in Paradise, 2017, oil on canvas, 71 x 56cm
After Midnight, 2017, oil on canvas, 71 x 56cm
Get Lost, 2017, oil on canvas, 61 x 46cm
High Enough, 2017, oil on canvas, 61 x 46cm
Perpetua, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Promised Land, 2016, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Jungle Dance, 2016, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Dream Sequence, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Catch the Sun, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Bamboozled, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Far Out, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Destination Unknown, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Welcome to Paradise, 2016, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Afterglow, 2016, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Fantasy Island, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Adrift, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Sultry Garden, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Dream on, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Twilight Zone, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Cloud None, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Paradise Pending, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Honeymoon Period, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Easily Lost, 2017, oil on canvas, 40 x 40cm
Tropical Horror, 2016, oil on canvas, 30 x 30cm
Sunset Cloak, 2016, oil on canvas, 30 x 25cm
Twilight Veneer, 2017, oil on canvas, 30 x 25cm
Vizard, 2016, oil on canvas, 30 x 20cm
Hotel California, 2017, oil on canvas, 30 x 20cm
Lost at Sea, 2017, oil on canvas, 20 x 30cm
Usual Illusion, 2017, oil on canvas, 20 x 30cm
The only true paradise is a paradise that we have lost.
Marcel Proust
The travel experience promises adventure, growth and authenticity; a journey into the unknown. Yet, in our highly connected global environment, experiences often become the product of spectacle, the mediated image and desire.
Shaped by exotic tropes and clichés Out of Sight presents a dark and seductive paradise that is both arresting and unsettling. The work examines ‘exoticised place’ (often portrayed through social media, tourism and film) teasing the space between authentic and inauthentic, masking and mocking notions of paradise. In the work, tropical motifs are layered and fractured just beyond our grasp; digital auroras emerge from silhouetted skylines; and melancholy figures sit idly, obscured by landscapes and mask-like motifs.
Out of Sight invites contemplation of contemporary experience asking the viewer to examine their own worldly encounters. If we encounter the world, in favour of controlling an image, we create a place that is out of reach and out of sight.
Out of Sight is informed by Simpson’s 2016 artist residencies in Chiang Mai (Thailand) and Flinders Island (Tasmania) where he contemplated his own expectations of romanticised location and authentic experience.