Simon Periton

Fusing together elements of Punk culture and Gothic Victoriana in combination with historical and socio-political influences, Simon Periton’s extraordinary sculptures defy categorisation. Periton originally began his career by exploring the artistic potential of traditional lace doilies, imbuing these quaint symbols of homeliness with unexpected dark undercurrents through the utilisation of cut-out images influenced by the Iraq war or symbols of nuclear protest. The artist has gone on to further develop these concepts within his three-dimensional works, creating complex lace-inspired lattice sculptures which interact majestically with their surrounding environment.

In an interview with the British Council, Periton recalled how he discovered the possibilities of sculpture: ‘I got into doing 3D pieces when I realised that I was working with something decorative… I’ve ended up approaching very different subjects, the decorative and the violent and marrying them together in different ways… And yet I think it has to be quite simple somehow, there’s a lot of complicated mess within that simplicity. I suppose with a pattern or a repeat pattern of any decorative nature, that’s what the very essence is: a simple idea made complicated’ (The artist in an interview with The British Council, 2001, online resource).

 

The present work, entitled Guerilla Gardener, encapsulates these ideas in its celebration of a humble leaf, here elevated and enlarged to a human scale. Periton intriguingly further subverts concepts of normalcy within nature by endowing his leaf with brilliantly glowing colours, tones which are made still more intense by the network of dark veins which dramatically define the structure of the leaf. The result is a work of powerful resonance which reveals Periton’s flair for imbuing the quotidian with a sense of wonder.