Walt Simpson portrays suburban and rural communities with the use of brilliant color and landscape that creates unpredictable illusions and irony in his compositions. Simpson received his B.A. in Studio Art from the University of South Carolina in 1999. His work is included in a number of private and corporate collections in the Southeast. Simpson has shown his work in a series of group and one-man shows in North and South Carolina.
Artist's Statement
"Neighborhoods are like quilts of interconnected color and texture. Some neighborhoods take on a personality, reflective of the people who live there. The houses represent the smallest element in the community. Some of the houses in low-income neighborhoods where I live are painted with bold, bright colors- beautiful in their own right and ironic, like flowers in the cracks of pavement. They seem ideal subjects to paint, representing hope and grace in unlikely places.
Rural houses and the land at different time of the day are another image in my work. They are influenced by stories told by old people, or passed down in poem or song. Finding a connection between night and day. The poetry of night and day, represented by a smiling landscape. Time passing, revealed in the cut away view of the land, exposing something unseen from the surface. Primitive representations crossed with daydreams."