Creative Expressions of Colour
By A. Jerry Simon Md
September 27 2026 | Art Review
This week we are looking at a painting that depicts the underwater beauty of an Antiguan and Caribbean coral reef. As the title “Depths of Imagination” suggests, this piece is expressionist in style, and does not represent a literal representation of the scene.
Colour and Mood: The typical cool blues and purples of the sea is contrasted with warm yellow, radiant pink and deep magenta. This gives the underwater environment an imaginative and dreamlike energy. This vibrancy created by the colours is enhanced by a heavy grainy texture.
Composition and Movement: The stylized fish, which predominantly swoop in from the border areas of the painting (more so the upper regions), guide the viewer’s eyes towards the lower centre to a whimsical, heavily dotted pink creature. This may be a coral reef, an inverted octopus; the viewer has freedom with regards to visual perception.
Translucent bubbles and other multi-colored forms are scattered across the scene. They serve as more circular or rather spherical counterpoints to the elongated curves of the fish, adding a sense of buoyancy to the composition.
Style and Influences: The fish and other objects are rendered with thick, bold, dark outlines and simplified forms. The eyes of the fish, dark blots of colour, was meant to give them personality and there is “clown fish” with its eye enhanced by a bubble. I leave the viewers to find it. The heavy outline was influenced by the Cloisonnism style of Paul Gauguin as characterized by his painting The Yellow Christ.
Meaning: While the painting depicts a marine scene, the textured background, swirling shapes and glowing spheres are meant to also resemble a nebula just as much as the sea. The idea is to merge the depths of the ocean with the depths of space by the depths of imagination. This is to unify the theme of the creation of the universe – the extreme of the seas and cosmos, (land implied in between) – and to give honour to the Creator.
Title: Depths of Imagination
Artist: A. Jerry Simon
Media: Colour pencil / oil and chalk pastel / digital painting
Tel / WhatsApp: (268) 779 2176
Email: jerrysimon.art@gmail.com