Design and Art Australia Online

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.

Writers:

Murray-Cree, Laura

Date written:

2006

Last updated:

2011