These are all original outsider art paintings by Simon Houlton, the inspiration for them comes from both within and without.
I paint a lot of faces, it is a rewarding and fascinating process, to take a blank canvas and fill it with whatever emotion I am trying to express. Painting faces and figures is my default setting, if I free-draw just making lines and movements without consideration as to the final outcome, then 9 times out of ten I will end up with a face or figure. It has become somewhat of an obsession to capture certain feelings, expressions, and even stories. A trend which will continue until I feel satisfied that I have said what I want to say with a certain idea or concept. Stylistically, my paintings have a range of different approaches. Expressionism, Cubism, and Art Brut are all interesting to me, but I guess you could mostly describe them s belonging to the school of Outsider Art. I like to scratch, scrape, splash, and attack my canvasses in a variety of different ways depending on my mood. Click here to see more.
Weird Fishes
I am from a fishing town called Hastings in the South East of England, I have always loved the sea, the way it can be calm but still threatening, or violent and wild, but always completely uncaring. Staring at the sea into the distant grey might be one of the few things I miss from my hometown, not seeing the sea everyday still feels slightly unnatural.
It is in some ways bizarre that I choose to paint sea creatures some of which I am actually terrified of, enough that they have appeared occasionally in my nightmares. These are all original paintings by Simon Houlton, click here for more.
Skeletons and Skulls
A collection of paintings featuring skeletons and skulls. Since I was a child I have always been interested in skulls and skeletons so it is natural that I would want to express this in my pictures. Human and animal skulls for example always seem so disconnected from the life that once inhabited them, maybe these pictures are my misguided attempts to redress that balance and put some life back into them. Click here to see more.