About Felicity Spear
Artist’s Statement »
Felicity Spear has been a practising and exhibiting artist since the 1980s.
In 2007 she completed a PhD at Monash University with a thesis titled Extending Vision: Mapping Space in Light and Time and an exhibition titled Out There – in light of remote possibilites.
Working with a range of media, Spear's art practice references the manipulation of optical phenomena, light, data and image capture, the processes of mapping and the influences of history. She focuses on the way we observe the physical world over time, both the human and non-human, in order to generate models which emphasise their value and complexity.
International Year of Astronomy in 2009
During the International Year of Astronomy in 2009, Spear was included in the National Gallery of Victoria exhibition Shared Sky.
She also curated the exhibition Beyond Visibility: Light and Dust, with pioneering astro-photographer David Malin, and celebrated indigenous artist Gulumbu Yunupingu, at Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne and University of Technology Gallery, Sydney.
Sky Lab
Spear concurrently curated the first of the Sky Lab series in five iterations from 2009 to 2016, including local and international artists.
Sky Lab (2009) – Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne
Sky Lab: from where you stand (2011) Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne
Sky Lab (2013) – Latrobe Regional Gallery Morwell, Victoria
Sky Lab: lines of sight & forces of attraction (2015) – Counihan Gallery in Brunswick, Melbourne
Sky Lab: Kepler’s Dream (2016) La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre Bendigo, Victoria
Solo Exhibitions
Spear developed her interest in the way we observe and interact with the physical world in a number of solo exhibitions:
The Observatory (2013)
Orbit (2016)
Umwelten – eco-fields and other universes (2019)
Ebb and Flow: the Overview Effect (2024)
Group Exhibitions
Extending her interest in the way in which we attempt to visualize, imagine or decode humans’ interaction with the physical world, Spear also curated the following group exhibitions:
Future Tense (2014)
Fossil- a slow acting violence (2017)
Parallel Universe (2019)
Biosphere – a sense of belonging (2021)
Listening Earth (2023)
50th Anniversary of first Moon landing
In 2019 Spear’s work appeared in two exhibitions in public regional galleries to commemorate the 50th anniversary of American astronaut Neil Armstrong taking the first human steps on the Moon in 1969.
The Moon at the Geelong Gallery and
Space at the Gippsland Art Gallery.
Felicity is an associate member of the research network AEGIS (Art, Ecology, Globalization and the Interpretation of Science) — www.rmit.edu.au/art/research/aegis.
