John Simpson at work on a piece in his West Cork studio
There is a certain “place” where a painter needs to be in the process of making paintings. It lies somewhere around and between chaos and order, around and between intuition and logical thought. There is a need to take on board the concepts of creation and destruction. The blank canvas is destroyed in order to create something else. “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs”.
Painting is a physical act, as well as being about feeling, using intelligence and the visual sense. The making of paintings involves change, development, putting paint on, taking it off, moving it around, making, destroying, thinking, feeling, acting, looking, and looking more, until that “place” is found. The “place” is like the space between the tides, where many aspects of and metaphors for life are found.
My World is the Space Between the Tides
That place where the sea takes away and gives back,
That edge of no-man’s land between creation and destruction,
That portal of arrival and departure,
Where the great tragedies and comedies are acted out,
Where the shells of the dead are washed up
And the spirits of the living run and play to the sea.
Our living space between the highs and lows,
Our to-ing and fro-ing, our coming and going,
Our linking and parting, our being and ending.
That place that’s neither here nor there
But at the same time everywhere.
That’s where you’ll find me – between the tides.