The Arts & Culture Journal

Tony Simpson's illustrations have all the charm and charisma of a Roald Dahl illustrated children's book. Only; with a twist. The distinctly adult themes cast an amusing eye over familiar phrases and circumstances from his 'Viagra Circus' to the 'Love Tunnel'.

Tony Simpson left Kingston Poly during the seventies with a DIPAD in furniture and 3D design. Having recently reread Catcher in the Rye: “I was reminded
how much I related to Holden Caulfield in his juvenile disenchantment to the phony world as he saw it. I was pretty immature too! He talked about dropping out ,heading west and living in a cabin in the woods. He didn't get to do it and had a nervous breakdown instead. I dropped out after college and lived in the West Country, Scotland and France before settling in Brighton and started to work as an illustrator in 1987.”

Working predominately as a magazine illustrator, Tony found that with the recession came a sharp decrease in opportunities: “I'm now finding that they've taken a direct hit and work is thin on the ground. When I started over twenty years ago, a typical woman's magazine might have a full page colour illustration and half a dozen smaller pictures in each issue.” This revelation seems difficult to comprehend yet with more and more publications relying on cheap (often free) interns and keen students, paid work has slowly become a rare commodity.

Commissioned pieces are often fairly direct on what they want so this economic squeeze has allowed Tony to develop a style “in a way closer to my heart.” And here lie the results!

Tony points to a wealth of influences - Picasso, Basquiat, Dubuffet and the Cobra School, but you don't get a truer insight into these illustrations than by studying them for yourself. They are presented in a playful 2-dimensional style, less concerned with accurate draftsmanship than with the gestures of his subjects. Tony's masterly