Simon Emery
Printmaker, illustrator, graphic designer and educator
Simon has been a Senior Lecturer on the BA (Hons) Graphic Design and Illustration course at The University of Brighton since 1999, he also teaches at the Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts.
Mixed media printmaking artworks
Simon’s creative practice and research interest is to visualise and celebrate the rhythms, patterns and currents of energy that proliferate the natural world. He strives to achieve this by the production of mixed media printmaking artworks (which utilise a range of methods including screen-printing, collographs, monoprints and digital processes).
The hand-rendered visual elements are synthesized from a diverse range of sources: from cosmology, Celtic myth, totem animals, bird flight, underwater plant forms, rock formations, found objects and folk motifs.
“The best things in life are free.” This was conveyed to Simon by a Great Aunt (a retired Head teacher) when he was a lad. It has resonated through his life, particularly via his connection to the Natural World e.g. passion for astronomy or immersing himself amid nature through past-times such as fishing, walking and wilderness camping. For Simon, Nature is a Green Tonic, a counter balance to the frenetic whirligig world of modern society.
Simon is a practicing Druid (Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids) and a qualified Yoga and Meditation teacher (British Wheel of Yoga – 2008).
Image opposite:
Wearing Oak and Feather Headdress for Alban Hefin (Summer Solstice Druid Ceremony).
The Oak crown marks the zenith of the year (22nd June), it symbolises the crowning of the Oak King, Lord of the Waxing Year, who annually falls to his twin, the Holly King, Lord of the Waning Year, for after the 22nd June, the days will be shorter.