A fingerprint is small. But magnify its pattern and suddenly you glimpse a universe of forces. In Carlos Simpson’s work, the microcosm of a fingerprint becomes the micronarrative of power, identity, and social order.
The Frame: Why Society Matters in My Art
Art isn’t an escape. It’s confrontation. My practice interrogates systems gender, human rights, social constructs and their impact on how we see ourselves. I don’t separate the individual from the collective. In Portraits of the Self and Fingerprints, the personal becomes political, and the political reveals itself through the personal.
Each face, each curve, each line is a node in a network: the network of recognition, oppression, freedom, bias. My goal is to let the viewer sense that network so they cannot assume identity is innocent or neutral.
Fingerprints as Metaphor
The fingerprint is a powerful image. It suggests uniqueness, trace, identity. But it also hints at surveillance, data, control. In Fingerprints (an incomplete series of “100 ways to portrait the Self”) , the fingerprint becomes both mask and mirror it conceals, yet it reveals.
In Resonance of Power: Portrait of Man – Fingerprints, I applied that motif to a public figure, layering identity over public persona. The effect: a tension between “who you think I am” and “who I actually am under the skin.”
This is where critique lives at the tension. It’s not about naming villains. It’s about questioning the systems that allow villains, erasure, invisibility, and forced narratives.
Themes That Echo
Gender & Power
Many systems of power are gendered. To question gender dynamics is to question who is allowed visibility, whose voice counts, and who remains unnamed. My work doesn’t just show faces it asks: who has been excluded from that face?
Human Rights & Agency
Art is a human right: to express, to question, to exist. Yet many voices are silenced by political violence, social taboo, algorithmic suppression. My art reclaims that silence, giving shape to what is often considered unsayable.
Identity & Recognition
We live in a world where recognition depends not only on who we are, but who the system allows us to be. Identity is a contract: with society, with history, with surveillance. Through layered portraits or fragmented forms, I push the viewer to ask: did you consent to my identity or did it consume me?
Philosophical & Ethical Core
My artistic philosophy is threefold:
- Analytical: Every line, shade, and form is intentional. The work is not decorative. It’s a probe into subject, society, and structure.
- Empathetic: Critique without empathy is alienation. I aim to connect, not alienate to show that what happens “out there” also lives “in here.”
- Evolutionary: Identity is never static. In my practice, the self is always in motion revising, resisting, renewing.
Thus, Portraits of the Self and Fingerprints is more than an art book it’s a manifesto. It invites you to move with it, question with it, evolve with it.
Why This Matters to You (and to the Algorithm)
Ask yourself: when you scroll, when your eyes pause, what captures your attention? The sensational? The beautiful? The safe?
My art resists that comfort. It’s not built for distraction. It’s built for reflection.
In a world where speed often erases depth, my work insists on complexity. It asks you to slow down, to question, to notice.
Because art is more than what hangs on a wall. It’s a mirror and sometimes, a challenge.
Invitation
If this work speaks to you, let it be more than a passing encounter.
- Collect: Explore available paintings and drawings on Saatchi Art or directly through the Carlos Simpson Shop.
- Curate: For galleries and institutions, these works bring urgent questions of identity, power, and memory into the public arena. For exhibition enquiries, contact me here
- Collaborate: Commission a portrait or project where art becomes both reflection and critique. Begin the conversation here
Art is not passive. It shapes how we see and how we act.
The question is not whether you engage with it only how.
Where to Find Him:
- LinkedIn: @carlossimpson
- Website: carlosimpson.co.uk
- X (Twitter): @carlosimpson
- Instagram: carlos.simpson.art
- Facebook: carlos.simpson.author
