This series of hard edge geometric paintings, done when the artist was 18 years old and still a student at theVancouver
       School of Art, constitutes the first consistent series of Modernist works. At this stage of his development, Simpson was
       also doing life drawing, still life,figuresand landscapes. These works were influenced by the late European Modernists
       such as the Italian artists,  Arturo Bonfanti and Alberto Magnelli,  the English abstractionist,Victor Pasmore, the early
       work of Victor Vasarely and also by Jean Arp's reliefs. In 1992, Simpson did another series reminiscent of these early
       works,  which he entitled, Meditations on Modernism.