Simon Averill's artwork has always focused on the minutiae, the overlooked, the unseen. In the artist's latest series of paintings, begun back in 2016, Simon Averill has been exploring the relationship between art and science. He has been using this as a lens to focus on aspects of his painting practice.
This painter is particularly interested in the phenomenon of quantum entanglement - the extraordinary behaviour of fundamental particles; their particle/wave duality and their ability to interact, to be 'entangled' over vast distances.
Scientists accept there is much that is unknown or misunderstood about quantum entanglement. It is this uncertainty that gives Simon Averill space as an artist to imagine and explore. A physicist might say that form and colour do not, indeed cannot, exist at the fundamental level. As an artist, Averill is not bound by these physical constraints. The artist has permission to misunderstand, to go beyond the physics, to make space for imagination and for art.
Simon Averill treats these paintings as a series of thought experiments. Each brushstroke a particle, each layer a wave. The artist is dealing with illusion, testing the possibilities of liminal space where the focus is on or just below the surface. Juxtaposition of colour and mark creates an optical disturbance requiring the eye to constantly shift its focus.
In the developmental stages of the painting there is space for expression and gesture. As it edges towards resolution, Averill tries to remove the maker's mark, as if the painting might have made itself.