Tanner Simon’s paintings explore familiar visual tropes through the use of heroic scale and parodies of power. While not overtly political, Simon's work seeks to re-contextualize cultural truisms and common knowledge into icons of significance. His work is inspired by imagery created using digital paint and 3-D modeling softwares, often utilizing intensely flat fields of color and smooth renderings that evoke early internet meme culture. His use of strategic formal decisions and playfully vibrant colors fixes otherwise mutable subjects and imbues them with a bombastic presence. Simon's paintings assert their physicality through their scale and placement within space, forging a dynamic relationship with the viewer and questioning preconceived notions of their relationship with issues of representation, power, and meaning.
Park, installation of 3
paintings, oil on canvas
Park, installation of 3 paintings, oil on canvas
Koi Pond, 87 x 102 inches, oil on canvas
Evening In, 102 x 87 inches, oil on canvas
1 WTC, 102 x 87 inches, oil on canvas
Big Soup, 87 x 102 inches, oil on canvas
Jraf, 102 x 87 inches, oil on canvas
Red, 102 x 87 inches, oil on canvas
Blue Nosferatu, 102 x 87 inches, oil on canvas
Big Clam/ Small Clam, 102 x 87 inches, oil on canvas
Dog Show, 102 x 87 inches, oil on canvas
Croissant Moon, 102 x 87 inches, oil on canvas
Napoleon Crossing the Alps, 87 x 102 inches, oil on canvas