View information about the artist by hovering over the image with your cursor.
Navigate through the gallery by clicking to the left or right of the image.

Name: Lee Simmonds

School: Ranelagh School

Town: Bracknell

County: Berkshire

Year: Year 12

Inspiration: Inspiration for my work often comes from the desire to explore classical mythology and literature and take the fundamental of the narrative and bend it into my own expression. Developing original symbolism as well as including high levels of detail are, however, standard features of the artwork I produce. I feel this was impregnated into my creative processing after a visit to a pre-Raphaelite exhibition. The astounding detail particularly in clothing and the network of symbols adding to the carefully and delicately presented narrative became one of the highest forms of art I regard. The human form is such an incredibly complex, powerful, relatable and versatile subject matter and I have been consumed in interest for it, bending and changing it into both more beautiful and more obscured. I feel to have someone simply intrigued by what I produce deems the work successful; as ultimately it reflects the essential motive for mythology and literature: instilling a sense of a moral and emotion in the reader or viewer.

Title: Malvolio's torture

Description: After studying 'Twelfth Night' for my English coursework I felt compelled to illustrate the unfathomable sense of gluttony, chaos and excess Shakespeare created. I took the element of mental obscurity from Malvolio’s torture and then incorporated it into my exam project “covert and obscured". After exploring how this character has been presented in Tim Crouch’s experimental theatre “I, Malvolio”, I was stoked up with symbolism and compositional ideas. This was the result: the flies to suggest mental decay and the origami birds giving a greatly contrasting sense of freedom and mental tranquillity.

Medium: Oil on canvas with tissue and folding paper.

Width: 85 Height: 135

Keywords: Malvolio, twelfth night, crouched figure, origami.