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Danish artist Henrik Simonsen engages with a Western tradition of flower paintings and still life, approaching it in a contemporary way. His charcoal drawings and paintings depict unspoiled common field plants and flowers, rather than the cultivated blooms usually found in traditional flower paintings. Simonsen’s Scandinavian background is stylistically evident in his economy of colour and line, and his use of space and light, along with the dominance of nature as the subject matter. Although delicately beautiful, these botanical observations are more than merely decorative, taking on an intimately personal element through their skilful, almost spontaneous execution. Simonsen currently lives and works in the UK and has exhibited internationally in locations including London, New York, Copenhagen and Venice. He studied with Antony Micallef in Exeter for three years and has shown with him in Denmark and the UK.

Artist Statement

When asked what I do I tell people that I paint but I think I should say I draw. The main element in my work is drawing. The attraction to drawing stems from the directness of the mark making process and the simple, yet magical way lines on a surface creates shapes and forms. I do all my drawing freehand even if I repeat an element, as I feel that projectors or stencils take the life and strength out of the line.

Nature has been a central theme in my work for years. There is a lesson to learn from how nature is able to vary simple forms infinitely. It might sound clichéd to say that nature is your source of inspiration and there have been times where I almost wished that I wanted to paint something ‘cooler’, but I can’t change that. I think this is where my Scandinavian background; its history of producing art, design and architecture inspired by natural forms, becomes evident. For me the draw to the subject matter is its inexhaustible richness and metaphorical ability to speak of life, passion, and the brevity of existence.

The influence for this body has also been the period from 1730 to 1765, now referred to as the Rococo. Rococo looked to nature for inspiration, celebrating the sinuous, the organic and the sensuous. It embraces the bizarre and the beauty of natural phenomena. I am fascinated by its lack of structure, hierarchy and the fairytale like world that it shows us. It’s a world of beauty, freedom and just plain fun. Like the subject matter the process of creating them is an organic process where the elements are allowed to ‘grow’ onto the canvas. The first mark will suggest others and in this way I move around the canvas until it is completed. The canvas will have washes of paint poured onto it, graphite drawn on it, and oil paint applied to it. There is no set order to this process and any
stage can be repeated a number of times. In the last few years the role of paint and colour in my work has grown significantly. I find that the application of paint, especially when poured or thrown at the canvas, gives the drawn lines an important contrast.

What is very import to me when I work is the history of the piece. This is why I rarely attempt
to erase anything completely on a canvas. I prefer to keep the drawing that I later abandoned, changed or worked over as a part of the finished piece. I feel this gives the painting a feel of having occupied a period in time because the layers allows the history of creation to be visible rather then reducing the piece to just an impenetrable surface.

Education

Exhibitions