About the Artist
A prolific and critically recognized artist and musician, Gregg Simpson has exhibited his paintings, drawings, and works on paper throughout Canada, the US, Europe, South America and Asia. His work is included in academic studies, art history books and journals published in Canada, Europe, and Australia and has been exhibited in historical surveys on surrealism and abstraction. His studio is on Bowen Island, BC, near Vancouver.
The word “eclectic” perfectly describes Simpson’s output over the years. He tries never to repeat himself and is always searching for new ways to work with materials. In the studio, he paints mostly in acrylics and when he’s traveling, he uses pastels and gouache to create drawings based on all the new stimuli he encounters on the road. He also loves history—both cultural history and the history of art.
Simpson is also heavily influenced by music, particularly jazz and classical. He always has music playing while in the studio. His two loves—music and art—are completely intertwined in his paintings and drawings. You’ll see rhythms in his brushstrokes and melodies in his colors and shapes.
Nicole Donnely, a curator in Mexico City, wrote that Simpson’s paintings flux between the solid, rooted world and the ethereal. Writer and Surrealist historian, José Pierre, a colleague of André Breton in the Surrealist Group, wrote that Simpson knows how to add pyramids and clouds, geometry and the breeze, the palpable and the impalpable, the visible and the invisible..
You can view the details of Simpson’s previous and upcoming Exhibitions, a selection of the private and public Collections that include his work. and a full list of Reviews, Critical Writings, and Publications.
A New Arcadia: The Art of Gregg Simpson
In 2003, a nationally broadcast documentary was made for BRAVO TV on Simpson’s life and work, A New Arcadia: The Art of Gregg Simpson.
The documentary made between 2000 and 2003, is a study of the artist’s life and career, culminating in an exhibition in the 14th century Fortezza di Montalcino in Tuscany.