Doug Simon

The most striking constant in California-based, Pennsylvania-raised painter Doug Simon’s work must be the infinite play of light over gestural brushstrokes, but the most exciting variable is his ability to shift styles and aesthetic modes. The influences of Cezanne and Matisse—whose work Simon studied at the Barnes Foundation—are evident, but other canvases evoke Rothko and other more contemporary Los Angeles artists. Some paintings visit American pastoral settings whose rolling wheat fields teem with light, while on the coast, a sad little island becomes a booming feast of lush blues and greens.

Alongside these Expressionist works, which feature Simon’s style at its purest, others deploy Minimalism, Collage, Abstraction and Realism to great effect. Throughout, he seems concerned with a particular mythology of the American outdoors and its attendant ideals of freedom and self-determination. Roads, streams and iconic horizons figure prominently, teasing our curiosity to see what’s over the next ridge. However that inviting point is rendered, Simon’s brush captures its brilliant, warming glow.