Simeon Nelson :: biography at Design and Art Australia Online

Simeon Nelson b. 1964 London, UK

Artist (Industrial / Product Designer) , (Installation Artist) , (Sculptor)

Sculptor and installation artist, Simeon Nelson has been commissioned for a number of large public projects in Sydney including the redesign of Chifley Square (1995-97); and artwork for the M4 freeway noise-abatement wall. In 1997, Nelson represented Australia at the IX Triennale-India in Delhi.

Talk | Version history | Updated Oct. 19, 2011 | Created Jan. 1, 2006

Name

Simeon Nelson

Birth date

1964

Birth place

London, UK

Gender

Male

Roles

Artist (Industrial / Product Designer)
Artist (Installation Artist)
Artist (Sculptor)

Residence

2001- United Kingdom
1967- 2001 Sydney, NSW
1964- 1967 London, UK

Other Occupation

Lecturer (Lecturer Reader in Sculpture, School of Art & Design, University of Hertfordshire, UK)

Arrival

1967

Active Period

1983-

Cultural Heritage

English

Languages

English

Training

Sculpture (post-technician) Certificate, 1990 National Art School, Sydney, NSW
Bachelor of Fine Arts, 1985- 1987 Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney, NSW
Art Certificate, 1983- 1984 National Art School, Sydney, NSW

Is Indigenous

Initial Record Data Source

Twenty: Sherman Galleries 1986 - 2006

Biography

Simeon Nelson BA (The University of Sydney) FRSA is an artist and in 2006 was Senior Lecturer in Spatial Design and Sculpture in the School of Art and Design at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. His work is the embodiment of disparate artistic strands linked by the creative need to set up aesthetic or conceptual oppositions. It oscillates between opposing poles: small, intimate objects and larger installations; private studio practice and public artworks. These explorations, in a politicised sense, mirror what happens in the world at large: the recluse versus the activist. As Nelson says:

Beauty for me is conditional and relative. It cannot exist without its close relation and opposite, repulsion. I love exploring ways in which these qualities can be fused into one experience (or object or installation), or can be set up as oppositional poles to be played within.

Simeon Nelson has been commissioned for a number of large public projects in Sydney, such as the redesign of Chifley Square (1995-97); and, in association with Hassall Architects, design of the sculptural treatment for Luna Park and artwork for the M4 freeway noise-abatement wall. In 1997, Nelson represented Australia at the IX Triennale-India in Delhi. He was awarded the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2000 and, in 2003, was shortlisted for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize, London.

Since 2001, Simeon Nelson has been based in London. New directions in his practice reflect critical engagement with a different society and set of relationships with the natural world. An exhibition of new sculpture, 'Mappa Mundi’, organised by University of Hertfordshire Galleries, toured the UK during 2005-06.

Passages , a monograph on the artist’s work by Benjamin Genocchio, was published by UNSW Press, Sydney, in 2000.