Biography

Simon Pierse RWS has been an exhibiting artist since 1979. He was born and educated in South London and whilst at school attended Saturday classes at Camberwell School of Arts and life classes at Goldsmith's College. Afterwards he trained in London at the Slade School of Art, working predominately in the life rooms on figure compositions using clay maquettes. On leaving the Slade in 1979 he won a number of prizes and scholarships, including the Melville Nettleship Prize for figure composition, and a Boise travelling scholarship to Italy. In 1980 he converted disused office buildings in the Surrey Docks into a studio with a grant from SPACE and later that year he was awarded an Italian State scholarship to study in Florence for a year. On returning from Italy in 1981 he resumed work in the Surrey Docks studio and taught and painted in London until 1983. In 1984 he moved to North Essex where he taught in independent education for seven years, exhibiting widely in group shows throughout East Anglia. He held his first solo exhibition at The Old Fire Engine House in Ely in 1989 and had a further solo show at the Phoenix Gallery in Lavenham in 1991. In 1992 he moved to Wales to take up a post as tutor in Fine Art at the School of Art, University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Although initially trained as an oil painter, since 1990 Simon Pierse has worked mainly in watercolour and mixed media on paper.

Exhibitions | Publications | Statement

Simon Pierse was artist in residence at Melbourne Grammar School in 1993 and again at the Glen Arbor Arts Association in Michigan in 1998. Over the past fifteen years he has had exhibitions in Melbourne (1993) and Michigan (1998 & 1999), at MOMA Wales (1995 & 1997), at The Commonwealth Institute (1997) and the Oxford Gallery (1999). He is a member of the Royal Watercolour Society and the Watercolour Society of Wales. He exhibits regularly at Bankside Gallery in London and his work is in the collections of London University, La Trobe University and the British Museum (RWS Diploma Collection) as well as many private collections in Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia and the United States. In 2005, in recognition of his interests in mountain art, Simon was elected an associate of the Alpine Club, joining a small but growing number of artist members.