Simon Ling

L'Almanach 23 : Simon Ling

Born in 1968. Lives and works in London.

Remerciements : Greengrassi, Londres.

Simon Ling, born in 1968 and working in London, produces large paper-based acrylic compositions that depict the urban environment surrounding his studio. Combining several panels of identical size, these pieces offer a “post-cubist” vision of the city, reminiscent of David Hockney’s assemblages of Polaroids. They provide the viewer with a “gateway” into the contemporary urban landscape, leaving room for reverie, though a reverie as dark as Ling’s black-dominated colour palette. Evoking the heterogeneous architecture of the British capital, Ling offers a syncopated and polymorphous vision of the city. Untitled (2021), which opens the Consortium Museum’s Almanach 2023 exhibition, features the London Eye, warehouses, buildings, staircases—and a proliferation of patterns seemingly inspired by molecular diagrams.

— Éric Troncy