Michael Simpson is Winner of the prestigious John Moores Painting Prize 2016. 'Flat Surface Painting' is the first comprehensive catalogue of the distinguished British artist's work to date. Rooted in a fascination with fifteenth century Venetian and early Flemish painting, and inflected by the formal restraint and reduced palette of Minimalism, Simpson has developed a distinctive, darkly comedic artistic vocabulary with which to create works that move beyond their subject matter to question the nature of painting itself.