Now I’ve never met Simon personally, but instead stumbled across some of his work a while back. More specifically; his work for the “This Brutal House” exhibit at the 10 Chancery Lane Gallery. To say I was stunned would be an understatement, and after researching his story, everything became full-circle. Homeless, drifter, starving, construction worker, cancer-survivor? He is or has been all of those things, but when everything is said and done… he’s just an artist with a passion that never quits. Simon was nice to take some time out of planning for his upcoming exhibitions and ongoing paintings to share some insight with The Vivid Underground. The interview below.
Simon, tell us a little bit about yourself and how “it all began.”
“I live in Hong Kong, just turned 40, not much family but have Armenian heritage.
I was born in England, moved around a bit, ran away in the early 90’s after DJ-ing and promoting rave parties. Traveled round the world on a shoestring and came to Hong Kong in ‘97 broke and homeless. Got a job in construction and was saving money to try to put myself through art school and somehow started selling work. Managed to quit my day job in 2001 and haven’t looked back.”
How did you first become an artist? Any reason why?
“I was born that way. I drew obsessively from an early age, just never had opportunity or encouragement and was always struggling to pay rent. But I’ve been making art my whole life.”
What do you consider your main source of inspiration?
“Everything. People, film, art, theatre, life, love, fear…… In my more conceptual work I think a lot about science fiction and monomyth, or hero myths, the idealism that gets corrupted by civilisation, about the dreams of individuals and the pushes and pulls of the rhythms of institutions. I think about spectacle and wonder, things like circus that are at once wonderful and dark.”
Now I read that you were diagnosed with a rare form of cancer recently. Can > you tell us about it?
“It sucked. But I’m ok now.”
Does it play any role in your work?
“Only in the sense that being so close to death bought me a clarity and understanding, and awareness that I never had before. About what real fear is, about what death is. It freed me from a lot of insecurity and I’ve yet to fully understand the repurcussions in my work. I certainly work a lot harder and more intensely and am a lot more excited about the work.”
You’ve gained international recognition for your paintings, sculptures, film, and photography. Are there any other mediums you’d like to pursue?
“I just want to paint better and I’d like to do more film but it’s restricted by budget quite often. I’m tying to produce a hologram installation right now but it’s crazy money.”
Your painting technique is very distinct. All though very detailed, your paintings exhibit a sense of “messiness”, what can you tell us about your unique style?
“Painting for me is very spontaneous and intuitive. I photograph the models and work from that, but the final result is nothing like the initial drawing or composition. I really kinda get lost in the process, sometimes they come out clean and other times blurred, sometimes more representational and other times completely abstract. I guess the thing that’s important for me is that I progress and change and experiment constantly. I love that painting is so direct, that it is what it is on the surface.”
Is there anything you’re trying to communicate to your audience?
“I’d never try to lead the audience. It’s my voice, that’s all I have. People have their own perspective and I kinda enjoy the varied interpretations.”
Any particular messages involved in your work?
“Passion and hard work.”
What’s next for Simon Birch? Are there any future projects you can share with us?
“I’m building an enourmous installation right now. It opens in April 2010. It’s a 20,000 square foot space in Hong Kong. It could be described as a conceptual circus. There’s about 10 films, a dozen huge sculptures, performance and installation. It’s vast and expensive and I’m funding it as we don’t have any supports for this kind of thing in HK. I got the venue for free from a big property firm called Swire. Louis Vuitton is lending some support too, as well as Diesel. Nothing like this has ever been done in HK, we don’t even have a contemporary art museum. So I’m building my own temporary one. It’s called Hope and Glory. I am working around the clock with architects, film crews, production people, it’s pretty insane, but a lot of fun.”
If you could change one thing about the world, what would you change and why?
“Reduce the population to 1 billion. We ‘progressed’ too fast in the last 100 years, we should all slow down and be way more cautious and thoughtful about the way civilisation develops. The western industrialised model is just so flawed but you gotta have hope that we clever little monkeys will work it out. We haven’t blown ourselves up yet after all…..
A big thanks to Simon Birch for his time and insight.
Be sure to check out more of his work @
Simon Birch website
Monkey Modified (SB blog)
10 Chancery Lane Gallery
-Bendey
“Les modes passent, le style est eternel.” For all of you that need a French lesson, the translation into English is essentially, “Fashions fade, style is eternal.”
