“A single colour that continues from the first panel on to the next, a step down of no more than half a centimetre, can be of a different light or tone purely as a result of a slight difference in distance from the eye so that the work becomes, in varying degrees, kinetic… banal colours such as digital greys can be sublime and there is something so 21st century about them, very minimal, very contemporary, hence my reluctance to use any shade that resembles black”.
(b. 1964)
Simon Gales.
Simon Gales was born in Suffolk in 1964. He studied art at Goldsmiths College under Jon Thompson and achieved the joint highest mark in the YBA year of 1988. The following year he was selected as one of 25 'Christies New Contemporaries' in a highly publicised show at the Royal College of Art where six works from his degree show were to be auctioned by Christie's in what was to be the first auction of young contemporary artists by a major auction house. The show attracted media attention and his work was featured in the Telegraph Weekend Colour Supplement as well as the BBC 1 O'Clock News. This led him to be commissioned by London Transport for which he painted Childhood, a painting London Underground later used to publicise the V&A Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green.
Gales's early metaphysical works incited him to be included in a number of largely conceptual exhibitions such as A Spiritual Dimension in 1989, a major touring exhibition organised by Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery alongside Craigie Aitchison, Tess Jaray and Bob Law. Due to the small scale of Gales’s works at this time, he was invited again from 1991-1992 to show with Craigie Aitchison in another touring exhibition, Cabinet Paintings .
Gales had a series of solo and joint exhibitions notably at the Jill George Gallery in 1990 and later at The Bruton Street Gallery, London in 1999, 2001 which sold out and again in 2003 at which point the gallery closed down.
Gales's interest in metaphysics was due to the influence of initial tutorials with Jon Thompson at Goldsmiths, particularly in regards to the role of intuition.
"He put into my head that an extra dimension could be explored beneath the surface of a subject."
This resulted in a long series of metaphysical paintings that have more recently undergone some radical changes from spare, singular, kinetic images of varying focus through to carefully designed minimal works bordering on abstraction. These latter pieces are often painted on rectangular panels, the smaller one attached as if floating in front of the larger, casting real shadows that constantly change according to the light. These shadows interplay with the painted image so that the painting becomes a physical reality in the space of the spectator.