Simon Cottrell
Metals
Accredited Professional Member
Simon Cottrell’s works never allow an audience to make clear sense of what they’re experiencing. Instead, the works are built with the aim of stimulating curiosity through gentle confoundment, directing an ongoing perceptual process that has the potential to unfurl over time through intimate relationship with its wearer. Almost all past work exists in this context today, in the lives of people who own and wear the work. These pieces are meticulously made using extremely tough, durable and stainless materials selected to withstand the lives of real people. All materials are sourced from discarded/waste yet are worked in ways that retain no visual memory of that history.
Simon Cottrell has exhibited jewellery and objects internationally in over 190 exhibitions, since 1996 after completing a BA of Fine Arts with Honours in Gold and Silversmithing at RMIT, where they also completed a Master of Arts Research in 2010.
They set up their first studio in Melbourne in 1997, making a broad range of limited-edition, production and commissioned jewellery in stainless steel and precious metals. Since the early-2000’s, one-off jewellery pieces have become the primary focus of their studio practice.
Between 2002-2011 they were Associate Lecturer in Metals and Jewellery in the School of Art and Design at Monash University, and lectured in Gold & Silversmithing at the RMIT School of Fine Arts, Melbourne. They are regularly invited to speak and give workshops and lectures internationally.
In 2011 they became a Lecturer/Researcher in the Jewellery & Object Workshop (formerly Gold & Silversmithing) at the Australian National University, School of Art and Design. In 2021 Simon was made an Honorary Lecturer/Researcher at ANU School of Art & Design. They are currently based between Canberra & East Gippsland, Victoria, where their studio practice is now located.
Represented in Australia by Gallery Funaki, Melbourne.
Represented in Europe by Hannah Gallery, Barcelona, Spain.
Represented in North America by Galerie Noel Guyomarc'h, Montreal, Canada.
Works are held in public collections including:
McMillian Collection, RMITU Melbourne
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
E’space Solidor, Ville de Cagnes-Sur-Mer, France
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth.
Die Nue Sammlung, Pinakothek De Modern, Munich, Germany
Muzeum Českého Ráje, Turnov, Czech Republic.
Online Resources:
The Body Layer; Semblance and Self Essay; Reclaim; and Cupped Hands
galleryfunaki.com.au/artists/simon-cottrell