Simon Bill is a contemporary British visual artist who lives and works in Sheffield

Sheffield

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. He studied art at the St. Martin's School of Art in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 from 1977–1980 and at The Royal College of Art, also in London, from 1982-1985. His work is in the public collection of the Leeds City Art Gallery in Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

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Working practice

Bill has almost exclusively exhibited oval paintings on plywood or MDF board, each measuring 127 cm / 97 cm / 5 cm. The subjects of his work are as varied as the materials he uses to create them, which include oil, acrylic, spray, day-glo, blackboard, and glass paints, as well as parcel string, gaffer tape, silicon, permanent markers, various types of foam, emulsion, corn, PVA, foil, fabric swatches, wood stains, hair, yacht varnish, modeling paste, drilled holes, fake gems, polystyrene, and wool.

Writing in Frieze

Frieze (magazine)

-Publication:frieze is published eight times a year and is based in London. As well as essays, exhibition reviews and columns by forward-thinking writers, artists, critics and curators, the magazine includes music reviews, artist projects, interviews and sections on design and...

, in 2004, the art critic

Art critic

An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...

 Jeffrey Kastner said,

"You’ve got to wonder about Simon Bill. He paints large, wickedly distorted portraits of former British icons - such as Mr Blobby and the little squeezy-toy Troll guy - in a pastily translucent mixture of oil and dirty wax, like serendipitously congealed puddles of corrupted bodily fluids. These monumentally ugly paintings are so studiously unpleasant, so fuck-you disgusting that they don’t so much red-line the shock meter as overload it entirely. While his works rely on a certain warped nostalgia for their subjects, Bill isn’t attempting in any meaningful way to postpone their interment in the pop culture graveyard. In fact, his whole plan relies on them spending at least some time down among the worms. He prefers to wait for the rot to set in a bit before digging them up and performing his malevolent reanimations on them."

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions include The Loved One (2008) at Patrick Painter Inc. in Santa Monica

Santa Mônica

Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, Odd (2007) at Figge von Rosen Galerie, Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Oooh! (2006) at Stuart Shave/Modern Art in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, OOO! (oval paintings) (2006) at Outpost Gallery, in Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

, and Three Painters: Simon Bill (2002) at The Cornerhouse in Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

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External links

• Simon Bill Online