“It’s like portable sunshine,” says Gerry Simpson. He’s referring to color, of which he says there can never be too much – in his paintings, in his wardrobe, or anywhere for that matter. He even goes so far as to question whether hospital rooms make people sicker because they are so dull. The man himself has personality that cannot be described as anything other than colorful. “Even when I dress conservatively,” he says, “it’s color. I can’t help it.” And when people tell him it’s too much? Oh no. In Gerry-speak, it needs to be “color up-side-your-head color, stop-and-look-at-me, stop-and-pay-attention color.” True to his philosophy, Simpson explains that his process is to paint fast, covering the canvas as quickly as possible because he can’t stand the white, and he uses very little white when he paints. “I celebrate color. I invite people to feel the color; it attracts people and brings response,” he says.
Although he has only become an established artist – selling his work and holding shows – since moving to the Sacramento area five years ago, Simpson says that he’s been an artist his entire life. “I used to get in trouble for drawing when I was a kid,” he says. Growing up in New Jersey, Simpson never had art class as part of his early education, and he channeled his creativity into music and fashion. He landed in San Jose some 20 years ago by way of a fashion and modeling connection, which was serendipitous considering that when the opportunity to head west first presented itself, Simpson’s reaction was: “I’m not coming to California until someone pays my way.” Since moving, it’s done nothing but augment his inspiration. “California has helped my colorful stuff because it is so bright out here – people are colorful all year round,” he says.
Without much of an artist community in San Jose, Simpson used to give his paintings to friends and family as gifts. He maintains that he is an artist all the time, but still has to eat. So he worked his way up in the fashion world until he found himself managing visual merchandising for Nordstrom. All the while he painted as a hobby to fill the walls in his own house and to figure out where he fit in as an artist. The journey of discovering his inner artist took Simpson from singing in New York and fashion in San Jose, to painting in Sacramento, where he found a healthy art community and Gallery 1910, the first place to show his work and still the first place it stops when it comes out of his house. Simpson was always on the go in fast-paced Manhattan and the Bay Area. “But then I moved to Elk Grove…” he pauses, then laughs. “And it was the best thing. It slowed me down enough to allow time to express myself.”
On canvas, Simpson’s expressions are neighborhood scenes with kids, jazz and musicians. One illustrates a city street where kids play hopscotch and jump rope. A grandma leans out of one window, watching and ready to call their mothers the instant they misbehave. Recently, he’s been experimenting with abstract images, which Simpson describes as looser and more fluid. Regardless of its style, there is a familiarity with all his work. Perhaps his signature bold colors give it away, or perhaps the circles. Either way, it all reflects Simpson’s world as intense and vivid.
“I paint first for me, from my soul. The reward is that someone else likes it,” says Simpson, who signs his paintings as GOS. “I paint under the name GOS so that on Monday morning I can still be Gerry, in case no one liked it.” Almost in the same breath, though, he claims that his objective is to get someone to see his work and that he’ll paint as long as someone looks. This statement is a beautiful and telling contradiction, illustrating Simpson’s humility and graciousness as an artist – a feeling for which he can find no other word than “embarrassing.”
“With my first paining, would I have thought I’d be here now? No,” he says. “But I’ll paint whether there is money or not because I like what it does – it gets people talking. Even if they’re saying they don’t like it, I got some dialogue going. When that happens, my job as an artist is done.”
View more of Gerry Simpson’s work and find out where he’s currently showing at gosdesigns.com.
