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Nick Simpson
Nick Simpson was born in 1962 and brought up in picturesque rural Lincolnshire, England.
After leaving school, he spent a short time working on a pig farm before moving to London to pursue a career as a photographer. During this time, he additionally gained extensive experience in a variety of different creative categories, including art direction, set and lighting design, and fine art printing. He eventually built a reputation within the advertising industry as an imaginative photographic maverick, and worked with some of the capital's leading agencies on some of the world's biggest brands.
He has also written, directed and produced a number of commercials, documentaries and short films.
In the spring of 2012, Nick gave up the commercial world in order to concentrate exclusively on a career in fine art.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
“My art expresses a fascination with stories steeped in the bizarre, the exotic and the fantastic. Stories are told with an eclectic collection of visual clues, fictional objects, artefacts and curiosities. These clues all cause the narrative to hover between the real and the imaginary. Often an accompanying text seems to add further detail, but this is merely there to garnish a much deeper story. By careful planning, these richly detailed photographic tableaux are devised to invite the viewer to at first question, and then piece together their own version of the whole story.
In this body of work; ' The Bumforth Manor Collection ' I present a collection of photographs as though recently discovered in the attic of an imaginary long-deceased relative, my great grandfather, the 19th century eccentric and photographic pioneer, Samuel Heracles Gascoigne-Simpson (b.1839 d.1910).
I have borrowed heavily from the Victorians using cues and objects seemingly from that era. The resulting images highlight a shared obsession with the unusual and the obscure, the dark and the inexplicable. Often cloaked in humorous melodrama, these tales are created to exploit ironic notions such as colonialism, pomp, morality and the unstoppable march of progress.
The apparatus I have chosen to use to create these works;– an original 1867 Petzval lens mated to a full-plate mahogany view camera of similar vintage, further immerses us into the world of Victorian salon photography. It provides an authenticity that connects the process with the final artwork.
I construct from scratch, shoot all scenes in-camera and the resulting original picture is usually made in a single sitting on one photographic plate. Everything incorporated within my artwork is real, even if incongruous or unexpected, and often elements are fabricated purely for the picture. Hand painting, scratching and distressing add a patina to the plates, giving the illusion of historical provenance and adding further credibility to the suggestion that the picture really might be a genuine 19th century artefact. The edges of fact and fiction are twisted and blurred within this credible historical framework, allowing the viewer to create their own personal concept of what story lies within.”
Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print
Edition of 50
Size Framed: 870mm x 715mm
Additional notes:
This picture depicts the sitter reliving the moment of missed glory when perhaps 30 years earlier during the Crimean War, he was responsible for delivering the infamously vague order at the Battle of Balaclava for the British cavalry to charge the Russian guns, resulting in one of the most dramatic disasters in British Military history.
Lord Lucan received the order and asked our eponymous hero as to which guns were meant, our 'hero' replied "'There are your guns sir," and further added to the confusion by gesticulating vaguely in the direction of the bedded in Russian artillery, which was not the intended target.
Although almost certain death was inevitable, British honour would not allow the orders to be questioned further, and the British cavalry led by Lord Cardigan charged irregardless resulting in huge casualties and the failure to gain any military advantage whatsoever.
It should be noted that our hero took no part in the ensuing battle, and after delivering those ill fated lines, rode off in the opposite direction to the safety of the rear of the British lines...
The title of the picture comes from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'