Katrina Simon trained in architecture and landscape architecture, but also practises as a visual artist, specialising in small handmade objects. Born in London in 1966 to New Zealand parents, the family returned to Christchurch in 1969 where Katrina and her two brothers went to school. From 1984 to 1988, Simon studied architecture at the University of Auckland, followed by a Masters of Landscape Architecture at Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand, from 1992 to 1995. During and shortly after her formal education, Simon worked in architectural and landscape architectural offices, but most of her design work – for which she has won various prizes – has come about as a result of projects undertaken while also working in a variety of capacities in universities and other tertiary institutions in Auckland, Cambridge (UK), and Sydney. Simon arrived in Sydney in 2007, taking up a position as Senior Lecturer of Landscape Architecture in the Faculty of the Built Environment, University of New South Wales.
It was while she was studying for her masters degree that Simon took up her art practice. Using globes and cartographic representations of landscapes at scales ranging from 1: 50, 000, 000 to 1:1, she takes apart topographic maps into equal fragments and re-arranges them in order of colour codes rather than physical locations. This is to identify certain characteristics of the environment that can assist with understanding, improving and changing the urban landscape. In 2006 she contributed to an Art Web project funded by Smash Palace (a joint funding initiative of Creative NZ and the Ministry of Research Science and Technology) to research and complete a project report identifying patterns emerging from the Auckland region that would assist in making areas with lizard-friendly vegetation and cycleway conjunctions into areas more conducive to lizard populations. Whereas the above project used digital maps, Simon also uses paper maps, which she can divide into sections and attach to light, thin materials that can easily be pinned to walls for exhibitions, as was done for 'Seven Wonders (Natural and Scenic)’ in 2005 at the Snowwhite Gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. Simon’s work has also been exhibited in Sydney and New York.
Simon also uses maps and plastic globes as core materials for designing her jewellery, some of which was exhibited at Objectspace (Auckland) in 2006. In the exhibition, 'Graticule’, her pieces included Globe Necklace, which was constructed from inflatable globes cut into strips and rolled into baubles. In doing this, Simon explored the relationship between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional surfaces. Taking the original objects and images apart and re-assembling and using them in unexpected ways enabled her to transform the familiar into the foreign, and in so doing to convey a different view of the landscape to that represented on conventional printed maps.
Simon has received numerous design awards for both collaborative and solo design projects, including the Cavalier Bremworth AAA Design Award (Open Category) in 2004 and Urban Gaze AAA Panasonic Design Award in 2006. Simon has published a number of articles on design research and criticism, panelled as judge for design competitions, and in 2008 she enrolled in a PhD in Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney.
- Writers:
- De Lorenzo, Catherine
Note:
Lee, Sonia
Note:
- Date written:
- 2008
- Last updated:
- 2011
- Status:
- peer-reviewed
