Simon Periton

fashion and pop culture are large influences on his work

Article by Morag Keil | 10 Feb 2007

This, Simon Periton's second solo show at The Modern Institute, is a highly
decorative and culturally referential body of work that takes on the
traditional theme of portraiture. Periton has exhibited widely in the UK
and internationally, he has also collaborated with designers Phillip Treacy
and Isabella Blow. He has been commissioned to make works for various
fashion magazines as well as record covers, and it is clear that the worlds
of design, fashion and pop culture are large influences on his work.
Periton uses a diverse range of source material, from overly-decorative
wallpaper and fashion magazines to images of the Queen. The familiarity and
connotations that are attached to which envelop a lot of his subject matter are distorted almost to the point of abstraction. Visually the pieces are
painstakingly accurate in their attention to detail and fineness of the
stencils; this is balanced by the harsh jutting together of a wide range of
subjects and mediums. The works are layered with symbolism, colour and collage; this gives the original desirability of the glossy source material an ugliness relating to the overcrowding mass of information that the modern world throws up at us.

The Modern Institute, Glasgow until 24 Feb. Free.