Simon Shepherd: Reinvented reality

Brighton based British artist Simon Shepherd finds the similarities between two seemingly different objects and brings them together to highlight their unexpected connection in appearance and often in essence. It’s the only thing that still makes sense these days, he believes, “in a world of confusion and contradiction”. Thus, he sheds light on new possible meanings, sharing a different side of the story everyone is either involved in, talking about or consuming as part of an unquestioned routine.

What is surprising when it comes to his bold sculptures is not only the way he constantly and playfully reinvents the wheel, but the powerful themes he approaches, from domestic violence to how a brand becomes holy, and values shift from commercial to spiritual, or how religion fails to fulfill its promise of salvation and turns into a weapon of mass destruction. These ironic juxtapositions, fusions and rearrangements of once familiar aspects of reality challenge the viewer’s standards and expectations inviting to a more conscious reflection on the human condition and the world we live in today.