This section of Snapshot is entirely dedicated to the creative souls of our college. In this months edition we are covering our first artist: Simon Mapp, a digital artist and our college librarian.
In college Simon is a library assistant and has been working for Coleg Cambria for 14 years, he is local to Wrexham since 1993. You may know Simon for being great with technology and always eager to help behind the library desk, but were you aware of his creative side?
Simon comes from an artistic family background and mainly specialises in digital drawings and portraits, his journey with art began in 2002 when he joined a beginners watercolour class.
Were you inspired by a particular event, artist or place?
After I got into painting with the above group I began to read a lot of art history. I found myself very strongly attracted to Fauvism and to the work of Matisse in particular. I also developed a liking for Rothko - I went through an abstract expressionist phase - and, conversely (and perversely perhaps) the ultra realistic work of Norman Rockwell.
What type of art do you specialise in?
Probably the only thing I've never really painted is landscapes - I've never had a great interest in them. A tree is a tree is a tree! I mainly paint portraits - I'm quite good at these.
What type of mediums do you use? Do you have a specific art style?
As I say, I started with watercolours. I never really developed this direction though, soon looking at different areas - pastels, marker pens, acrylics. These latter became my main medium for several years. However in 2012, as I had recently bought an iPad, I became interested in digital art, and since that time, this has been what I've mainly produced.
The problem with digital art is that everyone thinks that it is simply a question of running an image through software and instantly creating a fake 'painting'. You can get apps that will
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