Simeon Nelson
Encyclopedia
Simeon Nelson is an Australia
n sculptor and transdisciplinary artist.
Nelson was born in England
in 1964 and came to Australia
in 1967. Since 2001 he has lived and worked in London
. He is Reader in Sculpture at The University of Hertfordshire
, Hatfield, UK and a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.
and obtained a Bachelor of Fine Art degree at the Sydney College of the Arts
in 1987. Nelson has exhibited extensively since 1986, his most recent solo exhibitions being Mappa Mundi, University of Hertfordshire Galleries, Hatfield, UK and Terroir/Boudoir, Elastic Residence, London, UK (2005). He is currently inaugural artist-in-residence at the Royal Geographical Society, London and n Spring 2008 he will have his first major London solo exhibition at the RGS exhibition space on Exhibition Road, London
His work has been selected for major national and international exhibitions, including the National Gallery of Australia Sculpture Prize, Canberra 2005; The Jerwood Sculpture Prize, London, 2003; Tempered Ground, Museum of Garden History, London (2004); This was the future: Australian Sculpture of the 1950s, 60s 70s and Today, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2003); Australian Perspecta; Between Art and Nature, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, University of New South Wales, Sydney (1997); Systems End: Contemporary Art in Australia, Hakone Museum, Tokyo, Japan and touring (1996–97).
In 1997 he was the Australian representative to the IX Triennial India, New Delhi. Nelson was awarded the Australia Council’s New Work Project Grant in 1997, 1998 and 2003, the Australia Council Studio Residency in New York in 1994 and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2000.
He has worked on some major public art projects including "Flume", Ashford Kent, UK, "Proximities:Local histories / Global entanglements", a key public art project commissioned to celebrate the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games; Chifley Square Commission, Sydney 1997; The M4 Freeway Commission, Sydney 2000 and the Progettomoderno Commission, Treviso, Italy, 2002.
He is currently working on major projects in China, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Britain.
Nelson has deployed a huge range of materials, techniques and ideas in his oeuvre. Much of his work looks at the forms, systems and structures of nature, as described and represented by science. The branching of a tree, the root directory of a website or the infinitely intricate tracery of the lungs or vascular system of the human body form a set of important metaphors in his work. They are seen as structurally and conceptually analogous.
http://www.simeon-nelson.com/MappaMundi/MappaMundi.html articulates an interest in the representation of organic form in art and science. This body of work looks at human attempts to define and order nature, and how our position in relation to the natural world has evolved according to the fashions of scientific and artistic enquiry. Much of this work explores a boundary between pure abstraction and ornamentation (modernism and historicism). Both of these opposed systems are seen as forms of abstraction, one against the natural world and the other informed by it.
Wall zip expresses an implied architectonic lattice. It forms along a vertical line on the wall and grows out horizontally at 60 cm nodes. It is a crystalline ivy that left to its own devices would eventually engulf the wall. In Wall zip the ornament is the structure. Nelson's reworking of Barnett Newman’s zip in this highly ornamental way is a critique of the banality of purist abstraction and the tendency of such (masculine) abstraction to ignore more emotional, embodied (feminine) aspects of experience.
Digital images of winter trees shot in London were manipulated so that half of the tree pattern is digitised or pixellated and half is rendered more naturalistically as a vector drawing. It is a representation of a natural form via technology and asks: Is nature best represented as a series of quanta-like events and objects (bitmap) or as a more dynamic, fluid process (vector)?
These works ask questions such as: how organic (natural) form is appropriated by art, science and design; how their visual codes and models of how the world works become fixed in public consciousness. This concern with the connection between the natural and the artificial manifested in a series of ecological installations in the 1990s including Landscope (The Machine in the Garden) http://www.simeon-nelson.com/machine_in_garden.html. Representations of nature and nature itself were combined in large scale works that suggest that nature creates art as much as art creates nature.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n sculptor and transdisciplinary artist.
Nelson was born in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1964 and came to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in 1967. Since 2001 he has lived and worked in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He is Reader in Sculpture at The University of Hertfordshire
University of Hertfordshire
The University of Hertfordshire is a new university based largely in Hatfield, in the county of Hertfordshire, England, from which the university takes its name. It has more than 27,500 students, over 2500 staff, with a turnover of over £181m...
, Hatfield, UK and a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.
Accomplishments
Simeon Nelson was educated at Sydney Grammar SchoolSydney Grammar School
Sydney Grammar School is an independent, non-denominational, selective, day school for boys, located in Darlinghurst, Edgecliff and St Ives, all suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
and obtained a Bachelor of Fine Art degree at the Sydney College of the Arts
Sydney College of the Arts
The Sydney College of the Arts in Rozelle, Sydney, Australia is the visual arts faculty of the University of Sydney. It is housed in the Kirkbride complex, a cluster of sandstone buildings designed by James Barnet, the government architect in the late 19th century...
in 1987. Nelson has exhibited extensively since 1986, his most recent solo exhibitions being Mappa Mundi, University of Hertfordshire Galleries, Hatfield, UK and Terroir/Boudoir, Elastic Residence, London, UK (2005). He is currently inaugural artist-in-residence at the Royal Geographical Society, London and n Spring 2008 he will have his first major London solo exhibition at the RGS exhibition space on Exhibition Road, London
His work has been selected for major national and international exhibitions, including the National Gallery of Australia Sculpture Prize, Canberra 2005; The Jerwood Sculpture Prize, London, 2003; Tempered Ground, Museum of Garden History, London (2004); This was the future: Australian Sculpture of the 1950s, 60s 70s and Today, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2003); Australian Perspecta; Between Art and Nature, Ivan Dougherty Gallery, University of New South Wales, Sydney (1997); Systems End: Contemporary Art in Australia, Hakone Museum, Tokyo, Japan and touring (1996–97).
In 1997 he was the Australian representative to the IX Triennial India, New Delhi. Nelson was awarded the Australia Council’s New Work Project Grant in 1997, 1998 and 2003, the Australia Council Studio Residency in New York in 1994 and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2000.
He has worked on some major public art projects including "Flume", Ashford Kent, UK, "Proximities:Local histories / Global entanglements", a key public art project commissioned to celebrate the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games; Chifley Square Commission, Sydney 1997; The M4 Freeway Commission, Sydney 2000 and the Progettomoderno Commission, Treviso, Italy, 2002.
He is currently working on major projects in China, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Britain.
Specific projects
His work looks at relationships between nature and technology; how nature is mediated by technology and science on one hand and art on the other.Nelson has deployed a huge range of materials, techniques and ideas in his oeuvre. Much of his work looks at the forms, systems and structures of nature, as described and represented by science. The branching of a tree, the root directory of a website or the infinitely intricate tracery of the lungs or vascular system of the human body form a set of important metaphors in his work. They are seen as structurally and conceptually analogous.
Ornamental minimalism
His current project, loosely titled Ornamental Minimalismhttp://www.simeon-nelson.com/MappaMundi/MappaMundi.html articulates an interest in the representation of organic form in art and science. This body of work looks at human attempts to define and order nature, and how our position in relation to the natural world has evolved according to the fashions of scientific and artistic enquiry. Much of this work explores a boundary between pure abstraction and ornamentation (modernism and historicism). Both of these opposed systems are seen as forms of abstraction, one against the natural world and the other informed by it.
Wall zip
Wall zip (for Brancusi and Barnett Newman) is a key work in this project. It references the high-minded seriousness of Barnett Newman’s zip paintings. His zip motif suggests a mystical reality underlying our own that is normally obscured. Wall zip is an ornament-encrusted zip, a wrinkle in space that deforms the wall and, by extension, the building.Wall zip expresses an implied architectonic lattice. It forms along a vertical line on the wall and grows out horizontally at 60 cm nodes. It is a crystalline ivy that left to its own devices would eventually engulf the wall. In Wall zip the ornament is the structure. Nelson's reworking of Barnett Newman’s zip in this highly ornamental way is a critique of the banality of purist abstraction and the tendency of such (masculine) abstraction to ignore more emotional, embodied (feminine) aspects of experience.
Dendrite
In Dendrite http://www.simeon-nelson.com/dendrite.html a series of sculptures and computer based drawings from 2003, bitmap (digital) and vector line (analogue) imagery were combined into the same object.Digital images of winter trees shot in London were manipulated so that half of the tree pattern is digitised or pixellated and half is rendered more naturalistically as a vector drawing. It is a representation of a natural form via technology and asks: Is nature best represented as a series of quanta-like events and objects (bitmap) or as a more dynamic, fluid process (vector)?
Others
The relationship between art and architecture and art and landscape is another important aspect. Much of his commissioned work, for example, Pollinator Phenotype and Arborescence directly explores this relationship.These works ask questions such as: how organic (natural) form is appropriated by art, science and design; how their visual codes and models of how the world works become fixed in public consciousness. This concern with the connection between the natural and the artificial manifested in a series of ecological installations in the 1990s including Landscope (The Machine in the Garden) http://www.simeon-nelson.com/machine_in_garden.html. Representations of nature and nature itself were combined in large scale works that suggest that nature creates art as much as art creates nature.
External links
- Official home page
- Simeon Nelson at sculpture.org.uk