Simon Ogden was born in 1956 in Bradford, England. He was a student in England during the late 1970s and early 1980s, graduating from Birmingham Polytechnic in Sculpture with a first class Honours degree and, later, from the Royal College of Art with Masters in Painting. He lives and works in Christchurch, New Zealand, and until recently was an Associate Professor at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury. His studio work encompasses painting, printmaking and sculpture. Simon is one of the few artists in the world working with antique and ‘found’ linoleum materials to produce beautiful landscapes.
Simon’s work draws heavily from his long held interest in European, English and American Modernism and Surrealism. His work interweaves artistic concerns with personal passions opening the door to a more varied dialogue, one that contains figuration and symbolic references to the landscape and the body. His interests move across painting, object making, design, printmaking, photography and drawing. Each of these areas of creative activity reinforces, feeds and extends the possibilities of his continuing artistic practice. He is an avid collector of materials and an obsessive viewer of environments, surfaces, history and forms.
Ogden was an artist in residence at the Dunmoochin Foundation, Melbourne in 1994. He says this residency was pivotal to the development of his art career – before 1994 he had worked exclusively as an abstract painter. His residency at Dunmoochin was a deliberate attempt to bring subject matter to the forefront of his painting. He has exhibited extensively and his work is included in numerous private and public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Li Ka Shing Foundation, Hong Kong,
Victoria & Albert Museum, London UK,
Christies Contemporary Arts, London, UK,
St Barbara’s Church, Mansfield UK,
Royal College of Art UK,
Christchurch City Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu,
CSA Gallery Christchurch NZ,
College House Collection University of Canterbury, Christchurch NZ,
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ,
Manawatu Public Art Gallery, Palmerston North, NZ,
Massey University, Palmerston North, NZ, Canterbury Hospital Board, NZ,
Dunmoochin Foundation, Melbourne, Aust,
St Cuthbert’s College, Auckland, NZ,
Christchurch Polytechnic, NZ,
Air Nippon Airlines (ANA), Japan,
Toyko Bank, Japan,
Satachi & Satachi, New York, US,
Peter Jackson/Fran Walsh,
Wallace Arts Trust Collection, Pah Homestead, Auckland, NZ,
Christchurch College of Education, NZ,
Real Art Roadshow Collection No. 1 & No 2 Waikanae, NZ.
Recent Exhibition
2019 | A Single Score in Many Parts