Simone Slee
Lecturer
Please click here to view images of Simone's work.
Simone Slee is currently a PhD candidate in the School of Art at the University of Melbourne working on a project called Help a Sculpture, and other abfunctional potentials. Abfunction is a word she made up in about 2002 to describe the unexpected and surprising functions of the sculptural object. The project extends this concept as a method of producing and considering art works. In 2004 she was awarded the Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship. This allowed her to live and work in Frankfurt am Main and study at the Städelschule as a guest student of Professor Ayşe Erkmen. She has a Masters in Fine Art (Research) from RMIT University (2002), and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from the VCA, Melbourne University (1995). Her decision to make art followed her first undergraduate degree in Landscape Architecture at RMIT.
Simone Slee is currently a PhD candidate in the School of Art at the University of Melbourne working on a project called Help a Sculpture, and other abfunctional potentials. Abfunction is a word she made up in about 2002 to describe the unexpected and surprising functions of the sculptural object. The project extends this concept as a method of producing and considering art works. In 2004 she was awarded the Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship. This allowed her to live and work in Frankfurt am Main and study at the Städelschule as a guest student of Professor Ayşe Erkmen. She has a Masters in Fine Art (Research) from RMIT University (2002), and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sculpture) from the VCA, Melbourne University (1995). Her decision to make art followed her first undergraduate degree in Landscape Architecture at RMIT.
Employment History
To fund her art making projects, for years, she capitalised on her first degree working in urban design and landscape architectural offices. Although not immediately apparent, her background as a landscape architect provides a basis for an absurd extension in the production of her artwork. She has taught sculpture at RMIT University both in Melbourne and Hong Kong and in the landscape architecture program at RMIT. Simone is currently a lecturer in Sculpture and Spatial Practice, School of Art, Faculty of VCA & Music.
Research Interests
Simone Slee makes work that has its origins in sculpture. She produces installations, photographs, videos and sculptural objects that have a performative potential. Humour, embarrassment and instability are reoccurring qualities in the work. She was most recently curated into the exhibition Private Space, Common Space at the VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery in 2008, by Rebecca Coates. Other exhibitions include Yoko Ono, Dream Universe, Portikus, and Made in Frankfurt, Museum Giersch both curated by Nikola Dietrich in Frankfurt am Main, 2005. Her project On, (a series of bill boards) was showcased as one of the key Visual Arts Program projects by curator Juliana Engberg, in the 2003 Melbourne International Festival and was concurrently included in the Orifice exhibition at ACCA.
