Current Exhibition:

Maximum Microbial

On display April 30th – August 2nd, 2025

As a professional photographer working in a variety of industries from advertising to portraiture, Steve Simpson was trained in the art of seeing and artfully displaying commercially appealing subjects. Behind the public face of his photography work, Simpson has always been a painter. In his paintings, Simpson’s love affair with color, shape, line and texture converge into something otherworldly.

Simpson’s forms emulate natural and man-made structural forms. You can easily see shapes that echo microbial life alongside lines and circuits patterned from electronics. Layers of color seem to compete on the canvas, creating a sense of glowing bioluminescent life that is vaguely biological and technological—conveniently described as biomorphic.

The works on display in this exhibit were all created between 2021 and 2024, and this selection is only a sample of Simpson’s prolific catalog of work created during these 4 years. As you explore this exhibit, you can almost sense how Simpson’s playfulness with the medium seems to vibrate off the canvas. But what does it all mean?

Simpson’s philosophy of art is reminiscent of a quote from Henri Matisse, a well-known French expressionist painter of the 20th century. In 1908, Matisse wrote: “What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters.” Simpson himself explains, “there is no overreaching political or social issue that my work addresses.” The MSC Visual Arts Committee chose to exhibit Simpson’s paintings for two simple reason, to share the life effusing joy of making art, and to inject our messy human world with a little bit of whimsy and imagination.

For more information about the artist, visit SimpsonArtGallery.com