Art Lecture

Introducing our new Art Lecture series, once a quarter we will have an arts professional provide a lecture in their field of expertise.

Join Surrealism scholar Simon Weir for an engaging exploration of Surrealism’s profound philosophical and psychological dimensions. We’ll trace how André Breton, Salvador Dalí, and especially René Magritte advanced automatism from its roots in spiritualism to a powerful means of accessing the unconscious, shifting from physical techniques like automatic writing toward deeper psychological insights that could be communicated through text, image, object, cinema and architecture.

Drawing on Freud’s model of the conscious, preconscious, and subconscious, we’ll examine how dreams surface buried ideas, depicted holes, voids, invisible objects and architectural facades force inner experience onto outer reality. Simon will highlight Surrealist architecture’s uncanny resonance and the Kantian ontological foundations linking Cubism, Metaphysical Art, and Surrealism, revealing why these ideas continue to illuminate contemporary perception and life.

As a practicing painter and architectural designer whose work builds on these traditions, engaging object agency, dream-logic, and dialetheic complexities, Weir will share selected examples from of own images to illustrate the concepts vividly, as well as from Surrealism’s illustrious history. This promises a visually rich, thoughtful hour that enriches appreciation of the growing popularity and cultural value of Surrealist art.

Simon Weir is a Sydney-based artist, writer, and speaker whose work updates Surrealism through psychology and philosophy. He is a member of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism (ISSS) and the Editorial Collective of the International Journal of Surrealism. Weir is also a Senior Lecturer at The University of Sydney’s School of Architecture, Design & Planning, the author of the manifesto This Is Not a Surrealism (2024), and regularly presents public lectures, including an Art Gallery of New South Wales Art Appreciation lecture scheduled for 17–18 June 2026.

This talk will run from 10am to 11am, followed by morning tea.

The next dates are:
Thursday 18 June – TBC
Thursday 27 August – Lorraine Kypiotis
Thursday 15 October – Justin Paton