Dr Faye Neilson

Faye Neilson is an artist and lecturer in Art History/Theory and 3D studio practice.  After completing undergraduate studies in Fine Art at the University of Newcastle, she moved to live in Germany.  During this time, Faye undertook intensive language courses in German and was registered as a guest at the Universitat Gesamthochschule Kassel .  She participated in solo and group exhibitions, notably Durchgangszimmer at the Kulturbahnhof Kassel in 2000. She was also selected to take part in Bildhauer Werk Stadt, a site-specific sculpture project in Brakel in 1998. Faye lectured in Ceramics at the University of Paderborn in 2000 and was also regularly employed as a translator (German – English) during her time in Germany. 

Faye returned to Australia in 2001 to begin her PhD research, following the conferral of an Australian Postgraduate Award scholarship.  She was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Newcastle in 2007.  Her PHD exegesis, Bed and Body: aspects of personal comfort, explored the metaphorical significance of beds in contemporary art practice and also served to contextualise her exhibition of artwork.  Here, notions of comfort were aligned with memory, displacement, maternity and the early experience of attachment in children.  Faye’s exhibited mixed media works drew on comfort objects in the domestic environment, revealing the bed as a multi-faceted symbol.

Faye Neilson has been teaching at the University of Newcastle since 2006. Lecturing in both Art History/Theory and 3D Studio Practice, she is particularly interested in finding ways to promote conceptual and critical thinking and to strengthen the students’ understanding of the relationship between research and practice.

Research Expertise
My research focus lies in the broad area of 3D art and its theoretical discourse, particularly in relation to contemporary art practice and installation. More specifically, I am interested in object materiality, analogy and signification with reference to the domestic environment, especially in the reworking of traditional fibres-textiles processes. My PhD Exegesis, titled Bed and Body: aspects of personal comfort, theoretically contextualized my own practice through investigating the metaphorical use of beds in contemporary art practice. A diverse range of contemporary art objects were considered in this research, highlighting the key role of analogy in relation to artefacts and their materiality. During my PhD candidature, I presented research papers at the Palimpsests humanities conference at Curtin University, Perth and at the ACUADS conference in Perth. I was also Associate Investigator in the collaborative project Digital Technology and the Human Touch, which was supported with a University of Newcastle project grant. A work resulting from this project, Glove Layout (2005), is included in the National Gallery of Australia collection. Over the past fifteen years I have participated in both solo and group exhibitions in Australia and Germany. I have also regularly participated in locally curated exhibitions, notably Surface: detail (2008) and Here and Beyond (2007) at the Newcastle Region Art Gallery and Shedding Skin at the Lake Macquarie Art Gallery (2006). For these exhibitions, I formed part of the panel for discussions and forums. I was also selected to exhibit in the project Durchgangszimmer at the Kulturbahnhof, Kassel, Germany, in 2000 and the public art project Bildhauer Werk Stadt in Brakel, Germany in 1998.

Teaching Expertise
During the past eight years I have lectured in both Studio and Art History/Theory courses at the University of Newcastle. In Art History/Theory I have taught in the broad core strands of Critical Studies, Contemporary Issues in Art and Visual Analysis and in the elective unit of 3-D Arts since 1900. I have lectured in the studio areas of Soft Sculpture, 3D Art: Form and Space, 3D Art: Process and Practice, Principal Studio and Foundations in Creative Arts. I act as a supervisor for students enrolled in the Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) program and at Postgraduate level. In teaching, I hope to promote critical thinking and to strengthen the relationship between Art Theory and Studio Practice. The best tertiary teachers, in my experience, are enthusiastic and professional, project a sound knowledge base, can deliver information with clarity and good humour, foster critical thinking, can link topics and respond to new ideas quickly, are organised (but not inflexible) and genuinely care about the progress of each student and the class as a whole.

Administrative Expertise
I am currently acting as the Convenor of the Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) program at the University of Newcastle.