Michael Andrew Simpson

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I am a Melbourne (Australia) based artist, with a focus on oil painting and landscapes.

My style focuses around taking natural, dramatic landscapes or other natural subjects, stripping them down to their most basic forms, and finally building them back up using a synthetic process that I have developed over the past five years. The process may also include dramatisation of the landscape or subject while stripping it down.

To ground what is largely a leisurely practice that produces luxury items, I have decided to donate 50% of all profits I make from painting to UNICEF (The United Nations Children’s' Fund).

I spent a large part of my childhood in the Otway Ranges, which is likely the cause of my focus on the natural landscape within my paintings. Travel played a significant role in my childhood, which included travel to New Zealand, Vanuatu, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, France, England, and the United States, which provided me with background source material for subject matter. Additionally, living in a well-connected area of the world, I've had second-hand exposure to many other regions of the world, which provided a wealth of source material for painting.

I began teaching myself to paint over a decade ago using acrylic paints, and progressed onto oil paints about five years ago; I also experiment with other media -- such as pastels and watercolour -- on occasion. Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelley paintings provided the inspiration that pushed me to start painting. Following this, I developed my skills by copying other historical Australian landscape artists' work, then impressionists' work (particularly that of Vincent Van Gogh). However, the last five years of my painting experience has been devoted to developing my own, characteristic style.

Although I took standard art classes throughout school (except for my final two years), I'm for the most part self-taught within the field of oil painting. Furthermore, I developed my own style without the influence of art teachers/instructors.

During a three month-period of hospitalisation in 2018, I took advantage of my new-found wealth of time to develop my skills in drawing subject matter, and created plans for close to 200 paintings.

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