In these paintings, the making is part of the meaning. Each was built through a process of laying down, covering, scraping back and reworking, and the surface retains a record of that history. Loss, the passage of time and return are therefore things the paintings have undergone as well as things they describe.

'Sixteen Years’ has a worked surface that seems to have absorbed and weathered the intervening time. Here the process is almost literal. Legible writing once occupied the lower area and was painted over, scraped back and glazed until only traces remained, so that the earlier state lies physically beneath the present one. What has been lost is no longer simply absent; it has become embedded in the material. The lighter forms at the bottom hint at life, cultivation or human presence without becoming fully legible. The painting asks what happens during an absence. The sixteen years are not empty: what seemed permanently lost has continued to change beyond Leontes' knowledge.

Simon Burton (b. 1973, Doncaster, UK) lives and works in London. He attained a BA at the University of Brighton (1992 – 1995) and an MA at the Royal College of Art (1995 – 1997). Burton has exhibited internationally including in Bulgaria, China, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Poland, Romania, S. Korea, USA and the UK. Burton’s paintings are held in many public and private collections in China, Europe, USA and the UK.