NADA New York 2023

Simeon Barclay draws on diverse cultural sources, creating works that activate complex cultural histories and explore both imposed and self-curated identities. He combines appropriated imagery with text and sculpture, to address aspects of British culture, politics and economics, as well as aesthetics, memory and subjectivity. In particular, he draws on his time in the North of England’s manufacturing industry, contrasting its realities to the aspirational glamour and theatricality of imagery in sources like Vogue.

‘Tears’ is a large-scale diptych, a pair of mirroring portraits in acrylic, with a vinyl finish. Barclay depicts the American pop, rock and soul singer-songwriter Terence Trent D’Arby, who made his name in the 1980s and 1990s; the work characteristically reflects Barclay’s preoccupation with popular culture iconography and aesthetics and the characters within them. Fusing a glossy pop atmosphere with darkly melancholic overtones, ‘Tears’ considers the problems and possibilities of representation – interrogating how we situation ourselves and each other within culture and tradition.