Simon Keenleyside
Digging and Daydreams
Simon Keenleyside
BOC Emerging Artists Award Winner 2002 to 2003
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In his paintings, Keenleyside created environments that are familiar yet unreal. These works depicted gardens, exploring their potential as places for reflection, imagination and memory.
The paintings opened a world of wonder and quiet observation. Through the materiality of paint, Keenleyside built surfaces where marks ceased to describe landscape and instead became the landscape itself. Despite this, he did not identify as a landscape painter nor align himself with its traditions.
Instead, he presented synthetic, constructed vistas blending autobiographical memory, particularly from childhood in Essex, with references including medieval tapestry, Dutch flower painting, and the work of Ellsworth Kelly, Prunella Clough and Raoul De Keyser.
The BOC Emerging Artist Award, launched in 2002, supported a UK graduate working in two dimensions. The award provided studio funding, materials, a travel bursary and culminated in a London exhibition.