SIMON WEIR
Australian Artist
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Advancing contemporary art through developing surrealist theories of objects, representation and philosophy, and conveying these ideas through imagery
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Represenational artists generally use the forms and objects found in so-called reality, among these are all photographers, sculptors, architects, product designers, and some painters.
Within represenational art are those like the figurative surrealists, product designers and architects who make images that appear to represent visual reality, but actually present an alternate world or new reality.
Within these figurative surralists are those whose work is both psychological and ontological, that is, they locate the unchanging within endless multi-dimensional change.
In figurative art, the artist’s core question is which objects to paint. The technique and craft of the painting is a wholly sepaate matter than the selection of objects. For the artist, the question is both, which objects? and, presuming no shortage of options, how do you chose?
The study of the object in art binds Weir’s broad productive output. Paintings, essays, lectures
The constant in Weir’s work is the interaction between familirity and unfamiliarity. In each the first impression does not capture the intent, they are misunderstood at first glance. Conscious and unconscious visual signifiers act independently. As there is a delay between the two or more understandings, the experience of learning occurs, something meaningfully changes. Like Cubism, the subject of such art is partly that - to direct our attention to that mental operation and thereby help make us aware of that aspect of ourselves. More than Cubism, in these surreal images, each separate state of awareness is embedded in objects which interact with other objects, producing not a narative but a series of relations which allow for true paradoxes, calm tension and new tragedies.
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Member of the ISSS
(International Society for the Study of Surrealism)
since 2019.
Member of the Editorial Collective of the
International Journal of Surrealism
Senior Lecturer,
Sydney School of Architecture, Design & Planning,
The University of Sydney.
The views expressed on this site do not reflect those of the University of Sydney
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SIMON WEIR :
artist, designer, writer, speaker.