Simon Cottrell
What we might see as being ‘simple’ always has an underlying ‘complexity’. What we sense as being
‘calm’ is in actual fact, only a balance of ‘tensions’ at a level beneath our immediate perception.
Our perception of things as being one way or another depends on the level of our sensory attentiveness.
The visual ‘simplicity’ of a single leaf contains a complexity within its moisture laden cellular structure.
It could also be said that each singular cell is ‘simple’ in relation to the complex structure it lies within.
And of course further again that singular cell has a deeper atomic complexity in relation to the
singularity of the cell in itself.
Complex or simple…Calm or tense…Serious or playful…Ordered or random… Blurred or clear…
Singular or multiple… Static or growing…Flat or with volume…Man-made or natural…
If there is a clear line between my work being one way or another, I will often try to sit on that line.
Exactly where that line lies however, all depends on the attentiveness of the viewer.
The degree of our sensory attentiveness of course plays a fundamental role in the human creative process.
It is sensory attentiveness that enables us to understand the nature of cause and effect within the
production of material artifact. It allows us to absorb the delicacies of the methods used and the intricate
details of their specific outcomes.
Every new physical manipulation of material, or thought about compositional elements is informed by
a bank of previous insights which allows a kind of prediction as to what will happen, and sets up further
questions as to the potentials for future possibilities.
By simply gaining more insight into the nature and manner of our pre-thought perception it gives greater
clarity into how and what has been done and also to what may be done next within the creative process.
While my work is of course a direct embodiment of my own mental/physical processes, it is also devised
as a metaphor for the inherent nature of the processes themselves.
Neither my work nor I will ever scream a definitive manifesto of our aims and intentions. I am not really
attempting to tell you anything. I am simply materialising my view of the ‘nature of things’, which in turn
is just giving you something to look at, and hopefully bringing you in closer.
Getting used to looking closely at small things, will always leads us to look even closer at larger things.