The work of Simon Mee is underpinned by two prominent features. The works are executed with technical dexterity. The other defining element is a dark, sick sense of humour. In a recent exhibition, which sees works spanning nearly five years, it is possible to discern the development of aspects of the artist's earlier praciice in the most recent work.
In a painting such as The Annunciation, a rat-like creature with a predatory gaze (it could be a distorted Minnie Mouse) is blessed by an eagle, its popped eyes betraying the mock beatific scene at hand. The Madonna of the Bitten Nipple depicts a haloed mother suckling a newborn, its menacing teeth about to bite her nipple. Nocturne: The Secret Squirrel is another early painting, where a squirrel dressed in rocky mountain hunting gear blows the smoke from a recently fired gun. In each case a narrative is set up and defined by comic interaction. The recent works tend to inhabit less infantile terrain. The earlier jokiness - the bite of a nipple or the smoke of a gun - seems to have diminished. In its place is a dark uneasiness unlikely to raise even a titter.
It is difficult to fathom the reasons for its production, but there exists a toy doll which closely resembles a newborn infant. Wrinkled, with eyes askew and the uneven remnants of the umbilical cord dribbling from the belly, these dolls are grotesque. Mee has acquired one, and in a pencil drawing entitled There was an old woman one such baby balances above a boot, as if on a pedestal. The baby has emerged from the shoe as though it is a womb. This