British artist Simon Claridge received his BA in fine art from the University of Reading and then continued his study of the human form through his painting. Claridge blocks out fields of color and then begins to build up layers of paint to achieve a completely flat finish. In these stunning works, he aims to touch the viewer on an emotional level while still paying attention to the formal relationships of abstract shapes and voids within the composition. Claridge is drawn to the line between fantasy and reality and hopes to blur the two in his artworks. The female form provides a rich source of inspiration on formal and innate, visceral levels. “The human form is such a fantastic thing to paint,” says Claridge. “The eye never tires of seeing what it is programmed to respond to on such a guttural level.”