Simone Nelson is a visual artist who lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne. Informed by a background in modern dance and choreography, her drawing practice explores the body’s relationship to architecture, place and space through processes, actions and the performativity of documentation. Her works often take place outside traditional artistic settings and include site-specific drawings, drawing installations, works on paper and online publications.
Recent exhibitions include Abstraction, a project presenting the work of fifty female Australian artists curated by Missy Ueda and Emma Langridge while the online publications, Notation 3: Open Studio and Notation 3: Isolation Residency, trace the development of Nelson’s site-specific drawing at BLINDSIDE gallery, Melbourne, during the 2020 COVID-19 restrictions. In 2019 she undertook a residency as part of the Matsushima Bunko Museum Project on Matsushima Island, Japan and exhibited a site-specific commission for ‘Architecture as…‘, curated by Alex Walker and Sebastian Haeusler, to mark the demolition/re-purposing of The University of Melbourne’s Union House.
Abridged CV
Education
2018 – Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours), Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne
2004 – Bachelor of Fine Art – Drawing, VCA, University of Melbourne
1990 – Bachelor of Arts – Dance, University of Adelaide
Exhibitions
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Solo
2021 – Seventh Floor, Incinerator Gallery Off-site Program, Flemington Library, Melbourne
2019 – Task 5a, 5 walls Gallery
2018 – Spare Room, Arcade Projects, 5 walls Gallery, Melbourne
Group
2023 – Abstraction curated by Missy Ueda and Emma Langridge, 5 walls Gallery, Melbourne.
2018 – VCA Graduate Exhibition, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne
2018 – Act 4, George Paton Gallery, University of Melbourne (mentored by Bridie Lunney)
Awards, Grants, Commissions, Residencies
2020 – Solo Residency, Notation 3, BLINDSIDE, Nicholas Building, Melbourne
2019 – Residency as part of the Matsushima Bunko Museum Project, Matsushima Island, Japan
2019 – New work created for Architecture as… Curated by Sebastian Haeusler & Alex Walker, George Paton Gallery & Union House
2018 – Stuart Black Memorial Scholarship
Online Publications
2021 – Matsushima – No Visitor Island
2020 – Notation 3 Isolation Residency
2020 – Notation 3 Open Studio
Performance
2019 – Performer for Katie Lee and Arabella Frahn-Starkie, Set Elements
(2017-2019), Temporal Proximities curated by Kelli Alred, Magdalene Laundries, Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne
2019 – Performer for Katie Lee, In Vigil, No Single Thing, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne
Committees
2018 – VCA Graduate Catalogue Publication Committee