Simone LeAmon

Last updated

Simone LeAmon
Born1971 (age 52–53)
Melbourne, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Academic work
InstitutionsRMIT University

Simone LeAmon (born 1971 in Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian designer, artist and curator. LeAmon is currently the inaugural Hugh D.T Williamson Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne [1] [2] and an adjunct professor, Design and Social Context, RMIT University. [3]

Contents

LeAmon was awarded the prestigious 2021 Women in Design Award [4] for "her life-long passion and unwavering dedication to the design profession in Australia" [5] and was the 2009 winner of the national Cicely and Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Award, National Gallery of Victoria for her Lepidoptera Chair design. [6] [7] In 2007, LeAmon was identified in the top 100 product designers in the world in the book &Fork: 100 Designers, 10 Curators, 10 Good Designs [8] (Phaidon Press, 2007) and in The Bulletin Magazine's Smart 100: Australia’s Best and Brightest. [9]

Career

Artist and designer

LeAmon has co-founded two design studios, n+1 equals interdisciplinary studio (1998-2003) with Charles Anderson, [10] and Simone LeAmon Design and Creative Strategy (2003-2015). Between 2013 and 2016, LeAmon also had a collaborative practice with architect Edmund Carter. [11] LeAmon's art and design practice has been applied to product and furniture design, interior design, contemporary jewellery, and speculative design.

Well known design projects by Leamon include: the crescent design for the Australian Islamic Centre; [12] [13] Lighting products for Rakumba Lighting; [14] [15] Bespoke lift interiors for the Juilliard Group; Melbourne Arts Walk [16] masterplan and design for Arts Centre Melbourne; and the popular Bowling Arm bangles. [17]

Between 2007 and 2010, LeAmon was creative director for Australian manufacturer PLANEX, and was invited to present design concepts for international manufacturers Oluce and Dainese, Italy.

LeAmon's art and design work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions internationally, including: "Unexpected Pleasures", Design Museum London (2012); "Freestyle: New Australian Design for Living", Triennale di Milano (2008); "Anytime Soon", 1000 Eventi Milano (2005); "Quiet Collision", Viafarini Gallery Milano [18] (2003); and "MOTO Showroom", Gertrude Contemporary Arts Spaces Melbourne (2003). [19]

In 2013, LeAmon was guest curator and co-exhibition designer for the design component NGV's groundbreaking exhibition "Melbourne Now: The Design Wall" [20] [21] [22] installation, which featured 700 objects and 40 design projects by leading Melbourne product designers and manufacturers.

In 2015, LeAmon was appointed to the new Department of Contemporary Architecture and Design at the NGV. [23] [24] The NGV department is the first of its kind for an art gallery in Australia and LeAmon has co-curated an extensive program of exhibitions and collecting of Australian and international contemporary design including the annual Melbourne Design Week.

LeAmon's curatorial activities at the National Gallery of Victoria include: the "NGV Triennial" [25] in 2017 [26] and 2020; [27] "Lucy McRae: Body Architect" [28] (2019); "Black Bamboo: Contemporary Bamboo Furniture Design From Mer" (2019); "Designing Women" [29] (2018); "Contemporary lei and body adornment from the Torres Straits" [30] (2018); "Creating the Contemporary Chair" [31] (2017); "Art of the Pacific" (2016); and "Rigg Design Prize" [32] in 2015, 2018 and 2021.

In 2021, LeAmon was appointed curator of the inaugural Melbourne Design Fair [33] organised by the National Gallery of Victoria [34] in collaboration with the Melbourne Art Foundation.

Lecturer, RMIT University

LeAmon is currently an adjunct professor in the College of Design and Social Context at RMIT University. [3] She also supervised honours students and taught product design and design history in the Industrial Design Department from 2003 to 2015 at the RMIT School of Architecture and Design.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Gallery of Victoria</span> Art museum in Melbourne, Australia

The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Centre for Contemporary Art</span> Contemporary art museum in Victoria, Australia

The Australian Centre For Contemporary Art (ACCA) is a contemporary art gallery in Melbourne, Australia. The gallery is located on Sturt Street in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, in the inner suburb of Southbank. Designed by Wood Marsh Architects, the building was completed in 2002, and includes facilities for Chunky Move dance company and the Malthouse Theatre.

Jenny Bannister is an Australian fashion designer, based in Melbourne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gareth Sansom</span>

Gareth Sansom is an Australian artist, painter, printmaker and collagist and winner of the 2008 John McCaughey Memorial Prize of $100,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Sleeth (visual artist)</span> Australian artist

Matthew Sleeth is an Australian visual artist and filmmaker. His often collaborative practice incorporates photography, film, sculpture and installation with a particular focus on the aesthetic and conceptual concerns of new media. The performative and photographic nature of media art is regularly highlighted in his work.

The Melbourne Arts Precinct is home to a series of galleries, performing arts venues and spaces located in the Southbank district of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It includes such publicly-funded venues as Arts Centre Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria and Southbank Theatre, along with various offices and training institutions of arts organisations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lenton Parr</span>

Thomas Lenton Parr AM was an Australian sculptor and teacher.

Harriet Edquist is an Australian historian and curator, and Professor Emerita in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University in Melbourne. Born and educated in Melbourne, she has published widely on and created numerous exhibitions in the field of Australian architecture, art and design history. She has also contributed to the production of Australian design knowledge as the founding editor of the RMIT Design Archives Journal and is a member of the Design Research Institute at RMIT University.

Ilka Jane White is an Australian artist. Her practice spans projects in textiles, drawing, sculpture and installation, art-in-community and cross disciplinary collaboration. Direct engagement with the natural world is central to White’s making process. Her current work explores relationships between the mind, body, time and place, and questions the separation of these elements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arts Project Australia</span> Non-profit organisation based in Australia

Arts Project Australia Inc. is a registered charity and non-profit organisation located in Northcote, an inner northern area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The organisation provides facilitation/mentoring, studio and exhibition spaces for artists with intellectual disabilities, and as such has been identified as a major centre for the promotion and exhibition of outsider art, or art that has been produced outside of the contemporary and historical mainstream. In 2016 there were approximately 130 artists attending the studio, with the work of exhibiting artists featuring alongside works from the broader contemporary art community in the annual rotating exhibition program.

Robert Stewart Bell was an Australian artist and arts curator, best known for his focus on decorative arts. He also worked as an artist in ceramics and textiles.

Brenda L. Croft is an Aboriginal Australian artist, curator, writer, and educator working across contemporary Indigenous and mainstream arts and cultural sectors. Croft was a founding member of the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative in 1987.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy McRae</span>

Lucy McRae is a British-born Australian science fiction artist, body architect, film maker and TED fellow. Her installations include film, photography, sculptures, and edible and wearable technology.

Maree Clarke is a Mutti Mutti, Yorta Yorta, BoonWurrung/Wemba Wemba woman living in Melbourne, known for her work as a curator and artist. Clarke is a multidisciplinary artist renowned for her work in reviving South-eastern Aboriginal Australian art practices.

Yhonnie Scarce is an Australian glass artist whose work is held in major Australian galleries. She is a descendant of the Kokatha and Nukunu people of South Australia, and her art is informed by the effects of colonisation on Indigenous Australia, in particular Aboriginal South Australians. She has been active as an artist since completing her first degree in 2003, and teaches at the Centre of Visual Art in the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne.

Mary Bronwyn Featherston is an Australian interior designer and designer of child-friendly play and learning environments. She is known both for her furniture and design collaboration with Grant Featherston, as well as her work researching and designing educational spaces for children. Featherston was inducted into the Design Institute of Australia Hall of Fame in 1996. She is currently Adjunct Professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University.

Mari Funaki was a leading contemporary jeweller, designer, metal-smith and sculptor. She was active from 1990 to 2010. Initially a jeweller, she moved towards "purely sculptural forms" from the late 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Cattapan</span> Australian visual artist

Jon Cattapan is an Australian visual artist best known for his abstract oil paintings of cityscapes, his service as the 63rd Australian war artist and his work as a professor of visual art at the University of Melbourne in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the Victorian College of the Arts. Cattapan's artworks are held in several major galleries and collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery, and the National Gallery of Australia.

Dhambit Mununggurr is an Yolngu artist known for unique ultramarine blue bark paintings inspired by natural landscapes and Yolngu stories and legends. Her father Mutitjpuy Mununggurr and mother Gulumbu Yunupingu were both celebrated Aboriginal artists, each having won first prizes at the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torress Strait Islander Awards (NATSIAA). After a vehicular accident in 2005, Mununggurr was severely injured, but returned to painting in 2010.

Margaret Plant is a Professor of Australian art history, and as of November 2022 Emeritus Professor of Visual Arts at Monash University.

References

  1. ↑ "NGV announces a new era in design and architecture". Australian Arts Review. 11 March 2015. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  2. ↑ Todd, Stephen (17 December 2019). "Designs of the times: 10 years at the cutting edge". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  3. 1 2 "RMIT University Staff Profile: Simone LeAmon" . Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  4. ↑ "Introducing the 2021 Women In Design Winner". Architecture and Design. 25 October 2021.
  5. ↑ "2021 WOMEN IN DESIGN AWARD – SIMONE LEAMON". Good Design Australia. 14 October 2021. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  6. ↑ Buerckner, Chris (2 February 2010). "Lepidoptera Chair - Rigg Award 2009". COROFLOT. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  7. ↑ LeAmon, Simone (1 May 2013). "LEPIDOPTERA CHAIR" . Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  8. ↑ "And Fork: 100 Designers, 10 Curators, 10 Good Designs". Good Reads. 19 March 2007. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  9. ↑ Sheehy, Brett (26 June 2007). "Smart 100: Australia's Best and Brightest". The Bulletin. Special 2007 Edition.
  10. ↑ "n+1 equals". CHARLES ANDERSON STUDIOS. 15 June 2015. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
  11. ↑ "About Edmund Carter". Edmund Carter. 8 February 2021. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
  12. ↑ Bleby, Michael (23 June 2016). "Why Glenn Murcutt insisted this Melbourne mosque have no minaret". Australian Financial Review Magazine. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  13. ↑ McDonald, Andrew (5 August 2016). "Architecture of Faith at MID". Habitus Living.
  14. ↑ "Prima and Petit Ballerina". Australian Design Review. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  15. ↑ "Simone LeAmon". Rakumba Design. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  16. ↑ "Melbourne Arts Walk". Monument Australia. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  17. ↑ "Limited Over". IndesignLive. 14 August 2012. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
  18. ↑ "Quiet Collision: Pratica corrente - Stile australiano, Charles Anderson, Damiano Bertoli, Marco Fusinato, Simone LeAmon, Elizabeth Pulie e Michael Zavros". Viafarini. 6 November 2013. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  19. ↑ "Simone LeAmon". gertrude.org.au. 11 July 2021.
  20. ↑ "Melbourne Now Design Wall at the National Gallery of Victoria". Design Boom. 31 December 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
  21. ↑ Stephens, Andrew (2013). "Design Wall". The Age newspaper (interactive).
  22. ↑ "Melbourne Now to return a decade on". ArchitectureAU. 8 September 2020.
  23. ↑ "NGV ANNOUNCES A NEW ERA IN DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE". NGV Media Release. 6 March 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  24. ↑ Azzarello, Nina (1 September 2020). "NGV curators Simone LeAmon + Ewan McEoin on commissioning creativity for Friedman Benda's 'design in dialogue'". Designboom. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  25. ↑ Jefferson, Dee (21 October 2020). "National Gallery of Victoria anticipates post-lockdown Melbourne with announcement of NGV Triennial exhibition". ABC Arts. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  26. ↑ "NGV Triennial 2017". NGV. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
  27. ↑ "NGV Triennial 2020". NGV. 15 June 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  28. ↑ "LUCY MCRAE: BODY ARCHITECT". NGV. 1 August 2019. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  29. ↑ Edgar, Ray (21 September 2018). "Celebrating female design prowess". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
  30. ↑ LeAmon, Simone (1 December 2017). "Contemporary lei and body adornment from the Torres Strait Islands". Garland Magazine. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  31. ↑ "CREATING THE CONTEMPORARY CHAIR: THE GORDON MOFFATT GIFT". NGV. 17 March 2017. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  32. ↑ Feagins, Lucy (3 November 2015). "Rigg Design Prize 2015". The Design Files. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  33. ↑ Miller, Nick (2 February 2022). "It's art you can sit on: new Design Fair to push the possible". The Age. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  34. ↑ Fairley, Gina (4 February 2022). "BE IN THE KNOW: Inaugural Design Fair (VIC)". ArtsHub. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.