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Pop Psychedelic Series
  1967-69

 
Click below for a larger version                Read About the Series
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Untitled Plexi



Related Works:
 
  


Tantric Series

Earth and Sky Changes

Geometric Abstractions

The paintings, drawings, and collages which Simpson made between 1967 and 1969 were a period
 of apprenticeship with
Vancouver artist, Gary Lee Nova, who was just back from studying 
in the UK when Simpson met him and began collaborating together on multi media projects with the Al Neil Trio at the Sound Gallery.

Before meeting Lee Nova, Simpson had worked on a series of hard edge geometric  paintings influenced by the European artists of the early 60s such as Victor Vasarely,  Richard Moretensen and Arturo Bonfanti.  See Neo-Cubism, (below):


Neo-Cubism, oil on canvas, 1965

Lee Nova, however,  had made a unique synthesis of west coast funk and  Tantric geometry rendered in simplified forms and cartoon colours. In the Tantric Series  Simpson shows his other main influence of the period, artist Jack Wise.

From 1967-68, Simpson worked alongside Lee Nova in the next studio  in an old bulding on Powell St., later known as the New Era Social Club.  There, Simpson experimented with shapes like elongated  diamonds, or pyramids, with rainbows and Op Art  polka dots, a kind of Pop lanndscape painting.

This was also the period of the Mandan Ghetto Gallery in Kitsilano, started by bill bissett, Joy Long and Simpson in 1968.  This collective gallery  had exhibitions of collage, painting and concrete poetry during its short existence. 

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you find on this site. Last updated: Ocotber 6,  2007