Mr Simon Perry

Simon Perry is an awarded and publicly recognised visual artist and academic. He was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome and the Royal Academy Gold Medal for Sculpture. Simon has a particular interest in Art in Public Space. Over the last 20 years the key focus of his art practice has been the research, design and production of significant and high-profile urban public art in Australia and internationally. His major projects include: Public Address (2005), Federation Square, The John Mockridge Fountain, Melbourne City Square Melbourne (2000), Threaded Field, Docklands Stadium Melbourne (2000) and Public Purse (1994) Bourke Street Mall Melbourne. These projects have involved working collaboratively with large teams of artists, industry partners and multidisciplinary design teams. His more recent interest in the emerging field of art and ecology is demonstrated by his participation in a pioneering international exhibition Heat: Art and Climate Change.

As a lecturer, Perry co-created a new educational model for international collaboration for art students at RMIT University and Chelsea University of the Arts (London). The International Virtual Studio Project, 2005–2007 used live web-technologies to develop creative communication exchanges between students working on parallel installations in different physical locations.

Perry is recognised for his experience and knowledge of public art practice and legislation. He has been selected to sit on a number of public art advisory boards for major international and national organizations, and was a consultant for the new environmentally sustainable Melbourne City Council Building, CH2. He has been an advisor to government on commissioning strategies for artists working in public space, and has also been selected to judge major public art and sculpture competitions in Australia and internationally, including the City of Hong Kong Public Art Competition and ’Situate’ the Government of Western Australia International Sculpture Competition.

Research

• Historical and contemporary relationships between, sculpture, architecture and private/public space;

• Studio practice and its relation to sculpture commissions;

• New technologies and virtual space as a site for international collaborative art projects and educational training;

• Philosophy and cultural theory;

• The city as surface;

• The representation of animals and the organic in sculpture;

• History of analytical study and technical production in sculpture;

• Humour in art.

School of Art research clusters

Art in Public Space
Art and Environmental Sustainability

Research outputs

Exhibitions

2005 - Public Address, The Melbourne Prize for urban Art, shortlist exhibition Federation Square, Melbourne.

Commisssions

2005–2006 - City of Hobson’s Bay, Newport Lakes Commission
2004–2005 - City of Melbourne, Environmental Commission, The Simple Life, City Square
2004–2005 - RACV New Club Headquarters, Bourke Street, Melbourne, selected by the Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne University
2003–2004 - Seasons Apartments: Integrated Public Art work for apartment complex, Swanston St Melbourne
2003 - Edgewater Development, public art work, Maribyrnong

Projects

2005–2006 - City of Hobson’s Bay, Newport Lakes commission, RMIT University, Melbourne
2005 - International Virtual Project - Collaboration between Chelsea School of Art, London and RMIT University, Melbourne.

• BA(Hons)

• MA