Collection: Femi Simpson

A word from the artist:
“My paintings take inspiration from my photographs. Photo realism is a style of art, such as painting, with a highly detailed depiction of ordinary life in an extremely realistic way, with the exactness of a photograph. As the theme “Landscapes and the Dignity of Labour” suggests, some of the paintings in this exhibition show various landscapes such as Moseyo beach in Badagry, hills in Ilesha, the countryside in Ifaki, Greenland Dock in Surrey Quays London and canals in Nottingham. Others depict subjects going about their daily chores and routines. These include truck pushers, hawkers, weavers, students on their way to school, artistes, and commuters as they board buses on their way to work.”

I have always been fascinated with photography; with the power of the lens; with the potential behind the shutter release button and the view of the world which can be captured in a single click. I have always been amazed at the ability to freeze time, moments, and occasions, if you will, and the possibility to share these cherished images with others.

Today, with photorealism, I am even more fascinated with the power of the brush and painting, the ability and freedom to compose and recompose; to make textures, surfaces, lighting effects and shadows obey my will with a camera, a photograph, brush, paint and canvas.

I had always loved the arts. As a child, I grew up in a house that was full of books, photographs, cameras, and tripods. Papa, as we called my father, was an avid reader and a member of several book clubs. He loved music so much that we had an organ and a piano in the expansive sitting room. Papa made sure that each child had a copy of Smallwood’s Paino Tutor. Playing mostly on the organ, the girls – Idowu, Alaba and Bimpe would sing as he played. In the early 60s, probably before then, Papa had a camera with a remote control and a tripod with which we had family photo sessions. The first painting in this brochure titled “Racecourse Lagos” was developed from a photograph that he took in the early 60s before Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) was built. My interest in books, poetry and photography thus began at an early age and were to lead me to, and greatly influence my painting.  As a teenager, I read a lot of poems by John Keats, William Wordsworth, Oliver Goldsmith and other romantics. Young and impressionable, when I read Alexander Pope’s poem “Of the Character of Women”, wherein he was through words, painting different pictures of women, I knew I would do the same someday.”