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 exhibited and worked as a translator in Germany.  Neilson 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

Faye Neilson’s 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, her interests relate to object materiality, analogy and signification with reference to the domestic environment, especially in the reworking of traditional fibres-textiles processes. Neilson’s PhD Exegesis, titled Bed and Body: aspects of personal comfort, theoretically contextualized her 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. Over the past twenty years she has participated in both solo and group exhibitions in Australia and Germany. 

Teaching Expertise
Faye Neilson lectures in both Studio and Art History/Theory courses at the University of Newcastle. In Art History/Theory she has taught in the broad Fine Art strands of Critical Studies, Contemporary Issues in Art, Visual Analysis and 3-D Arts since 1900. She has also lectured in the studio areas of Soft Sculpture, 3D Art, Ceramics and Fibres-Textiles. Neilson supervises students enrolled in the Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) program and at Postgraduate level.