About Simon Cunniffe

Simon Cunniffe is a painter and printmaker based in Canterbury, United Kingdom. Much of his work focuses on semi-abstract oil paintings of the landscapes he discovers, or collections of related objects that describe a specific time or year in his life.

His paintings twist the rules of colour theory. Cunniffe's style involves reversing colour theory, using dominant, rich, warm red as a background to make the subject matter powerful enough to push this back. He combines high gloss with rich impasto oil focus points to heighten this process.

There is a strong emphasis on highly engineered, everyday structures. These rich, high gloss, usually red backgrounds, juxtapose the subject matter, of the piece. Textures and tones work off each other creating very bright, impactive paintings that leave subtlety behind.

Much of his work has a strong sense of perspective linking back to his interest in architecture, more precisely Victorian engineering and the High Tech style of the late 1980's.