Simon Degroot uses painting as a way to interrogate pre-existing images. Calling upon a background in commercial printing processes, he utilises strategies of disassembly and reassembly, abstraction and fragmentation in the creation of new works. Degroot explores two-dimensional representations of space, particularly a communicative and operational space found in flat screen technologies. He is interested in formal devices employed by these technologies to adumbrate space such as overlapping forms, transparency, back to front spatial arrangement and perspectival illusion. Degroot explores how these haptic surfaces can influence depictions of a similar space in contemporary painting.
BIO
Simon Degroot is a Brisbane based artist. He graduated a Bachelor of Fine Art (visual art) with Honours from the Queensland College of Art in 2013 and is currently undertaking his PhD.
Degroot has exhibited his work widely within several solo exhibitions throughout Australia at a variety of institutions and galleries some of which include: ‘Titanium Anvil’ at The Hold Artspace (2013), ‘Maintain Pleasure Personally’ at Blank_Space (2012), ‘Copy Repeat’ at Metro Art (2011) and ‘Superbouquet’ at Nine Lives Gallery (2011). He has also produced works for several public projects throughout Brisbane and Sydney. Degroots works have also been published in Independent Press (2011) and in 2008 he also release a self-published book entitled ‘The Happy Mad’.