Simon Pierse
An artist who mainly paints landscapes in watercolour is of course not a surprise in itself. However, it is somewhat of a revelation when you discover the artist was born and bred in London and studied at the capital’s Slade School of Fine Art where the emphasis was very much on painting still life and the figure in oil.
The man who has carved out this trajectory from a city-dwelling, formally trained oil painter to a watercolourist renowned for his big, desolate landscapes is Simon Pierse.
Now a member of the Royal Watercolour Society, Simon left art school in 1979 and began an Italian government scholarship in Florence. On meagre earnings, he bought a sketchpad and watercolour set and began to paint landscapes that caught his eye while travelling around southern Italy.
A trip to Australia’s otherworldly Red Centre, the desert region around Alice Springs, changed everything. Simon was visiting
