SIMON WEIR
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… above all the communicating art-object, the idea-object, the object functioning symbolically, the masochistic object, the edible object, the psychological object, the dialetheic object, the latent object, the misrepresentative object, the alluring object…
The invisible objects that we see.
Many of the problems we encounter, the enduring political ones, and the intimate interpersonal ones, have solutions that have presented themselves simply and clearly yet we could not see them when they were there. Very often we understand how to live better, yet we find ourselves unable to actually do it, we really do not understand them well enough to act them out, only understand them enough to think about them. With many problems, the answer long ago presented itself, but we did not see that it was the answer that it was. These objects are the subjects of my paintings. They are solutions to problems that I am unable to articulate. These objects, prior to interpretation, signify the existence of a cognition into which we may grow. They are objects of the perpetual future, solutions and yet not solutions.
Working within Contemporary Surrealism, inspired by the surrealist, metaphyiscal, symbolist and idiosyncratic tradition - Bosch, Leonardo, Vermeer, DeChirico, Dalí, Magritte - Weir translates marginal observations in human psychology and philosophy into concrete, objective imagery. Whereas the original Surrealist group absorbed Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis into an idealist philosophy, Weir’s practice is aligned with contemporary psychology and infra-realist philosophy, where the withdrawn, the concealed, and the veiled correspond to a confusion of ontological finitude.
Using the rigour and furious precision of realistic technique to demonstrate the validity and efficacy of the real-sensual interface, these images are non-modern, distinct from both modern and post-modern discourses. The images are serious, joyous, heavy, whimsical, psychological and apolitical, romantic, anti-fashion (more concerned with individual expression than group identity), philosophical and anti-sophistic, ironic and literal, they speak directly to outsiders, to those misunderstood who hold their convictions, the stoic pioneers and romantic visionaries.
These images are concerned with the heaviest objects and the mysteries beneath daily life that assert themselves into every living moment. They are not cathected objects, whose sentimental meanings are known in advance, they are instead troubling objects that force their own way into existence through an insistent, restless creativity, like tree roots lifting up, and tearing through, slabs of rational concrete. They are dialetheic objects that are simultaneously true and untrue, real and unreal.
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Some Prints Available here:
https://www.pineapplegallery.com.au/simon-weir/
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Born in 1975 in Sydney, Australia
Lives and works in Sydney.
Member of the ISSS
(International Society for the Study of Surrealism)
since 2019.
Member of the Editorial Collective of the
International Journal of Surrealism
Associate Dean (Student Life) and Senior Lecturer,
Sydney School of Architecture, Design & Planning,
The University of Sydney.
Education:
Doctor in Philosophy, 2011,
Sydney School of Architecture, Design & Planning,
The University of Sydney.
SIMON WEIR :
artist, designer, writer, speaker.