Frances Simpson Survival in a Harsh Environment

Frances Simpson Survival in a Harsh Environment Exhibition

One Off is pleased to present

Frances Simpson
Survival in a Harsh Environment

Exhibition opens Saturday 29 October 2022
noon to 4pm

Exhibition Run:
Saturday 29 October through 20 November 2022

Gallery open:
Tuesday through Saturday, from 9am - 5.30pm
Sunday, from noon - 5:30pm

'Ebb and Flow', Peterson Kamwathi Exhibition Invitation

Frances Simpson is a self-taught expressive artist working from a conscious connection to the landscape and her memories and experiences. After many years of singular exploration and experimentation, she paints with large brushes and mixed media onto paper or canvas, then scratching and mark making into texture and colour with inks, pastels, ash and charcoal. Her work is in many private and corporate collections. She has held solo shows in East Africa and Europe.

Born in Nakuru and painting for many years in the great Rift Valley, she is drawn to harsh environments; dry Acacia thorn scrub, soda lakes with their black volcanic rocks, dust plains. In contrast with those extreme landscapes, she depicts the delicate birds and plants that survive in those hostile places. Her aim is to experience this juxtaposition in her painting process: the physical strength of the black inks against a pale pastel wash of acrylic or watercolour.

In her plein air paintings she often uses the Flamingo (a Phoenix like bird) and the Acacia tree as signs of resurrection and regeneration, where nature rises again from the ashes, always in a process of change but still in the cyclical ebb and flow of death and rebirth. To the artist the Flamingo is a natural muse that inspires creativity and transformation and the Acacia shelters and defines the African landscape. The colours of pink, blood red, magenta, indigo, ochre, grey and white are particularly important in Frances Simpson’s work. So too is the bold line of ink and charcoal.

“In our increasingly vulnerable and often broken world, Art has a huge power to emotionally restore and lift the human spirit. I feel that my own role as an artist is to communicate the beauty of nature as a message of hope and inspiration, so that this awareness can encourage us to tread lightly through the natural world and protect our increasingly endangered African environment.”

Preview of Works

Click thumbnail to enlarge and scroll through all images

Frances Simpson – Acacia Landscape I, 2022 – Mixed media on textured paper – 40h x 50w cm - Kshs 180,000

Frances Simpson – Acacia Landscape II, 2022 – Mixed media on textured paper – 40h x 50w cm - Kshs 180000

Frances Simpson – Acacia Landscape III, 2022 – Mixed media on textured paper – 40h x 50w cm - Kshs 180,000

Frances Simpson – Acacia Landscape IV, 2022 – Mixed media on textured paper – 40h x 50w cm - Kshs 180,000

Frances Simpson – Acacia Landscape V, 2022 – Mixed media on textured paper – 40h x 50w cm - Kshs 180,000

Frances Simpson – Flamingo Blue, 2022 – Ink and acrylic on paper – 30h x 25w cm - Kshs 90,000

Frances Simpson – Flamingo in Hot Springs, 2022 – Mixed media on paper – 45h x 45w cm - Kshs 135,000

Frances Simpson – Flamingo on Volcanic Rock, 2022 – Ink and watercolour on paper – 40h x 35w cm - Kshs 180,000

Frances Simpson – Acacia Evening, 2022 – Mixed media on canvas – 50h x 65w cm - Kshs 240,000

Frances Simpson – Survival in a Harsh Environment III (Diptych), 2022 – Mixed media on paper – 40h x 60w cm - Kshs 200,000

Frances Simpson – Beauty in a Harsh Environment I, 2022 – Mixed media on paper – 20h x 28w cm - Kshs 70,000

More on Frances Simpson

Exhibition openings are usually on the last Saturday of every month, excluding December. The gallery remains open on Sundays allowing anyone who missed the opening to catch the exhibition the next day. Do join our mailing list so we can send you an invitation.