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2020 George Hicks Foundation Contemporary Art Award
Susan Sutton - Winner
Judge: Robin Stewart
Labyrinth - Oil on linen - 90 x 120 cms
The Award ceremony took place at the Victorian Artists Society Galleries in East Melbourne on 10th March 2020
Gallipoli Art Prize 2019 finalist
Artist statement
Artist - Susan Sutton
Bathing
Anzac Cove, 1915.
Oil on linen - 65x90cms
Enduring the oppressive heat of summer in the odorous trenches and the infestation of unwashed clothing, soldiers in their hundreds at Gallipoli were often forced to take risks in sight of the enemy for some respite at the beach of Anzac Cove.
Through appalling hardships and lack of personal privacy, together soldiers on all levels of command abandoned inhibitions to refresh their bodies and wash some clothes.
In my painting the calm sparkling water belies the dangers, as in these circumstances under occasional shelling and sniper fire, many were wounded or lost their lives
Australian artist
SUSAN SUTTON
the artist and her art
Book to be launched by author Marion Pescud with a showing of recent and retrospective Sutton oil paintings,
6 - 8pm on Thursday 15th November 2018, Metropolis Gallery 64 Ryrie Street, Geelong.
There will be another launch in Lorne at 5.30pm on Saturday 8th December, Lorne Beach Books, 108a Mountjoy Parade, Lorne.
Purchases may be made in Geelong at Metropolis Gallery, in Lorne at Lorne Beach Books and at Qdos Arts.
Hard cover - 224 page - full colour - 30x24cm - $95
For further information about the book and mail purchases please visit www.treblart.com.au
Corangamarah art prize - con.ceit'18 - Selected shortlisted finalist 2018
Water - 100x100cm oil on linen
Artist statement: My thoughts, dreamlike, returned to the late summer. I wanted to be back there surrounded by water Cool, gently moving and glittering in the light Wanting the day to last forever.
Tattersall's Club Landscape Art Prize 2018 - Selected shortlisted finalist
The littoral edge - 90x120cm oil on linen
Riverside Centre, Brisbane, Queensland
Artist statement: Australia is a land of wide open interior spaces largely devoid of people. However, around the perimeter people often mass together in absolute proximity to the landscape. Direct contact allows near naked bodies to embrace the littoral edge in a totally tactile manner. Individually, sand and water provide vastly different textural experiences, yet at the littoral edge they almost become one.
2018 Kilgour Prize for figurative art - Shortlisted finalist
Newcastle Art Gallery New South Wales
Exhibition commences 4/8/2018
Corangamarah Art Prize - con.ceit'17 Shortlisted finalist 2017
'Challenge' oil and graphite on linen - 45x120cms
Artist statement
At the time an exhilarating reality the challenge was but a passing moment a fleeting vision!
Powerful and majestic in physical beauty the driven desire to excel created its own rhythm.
Tattersall's Landscape Art Prize 2017, Brisbane Shortlisted finalist
'Late lunch' oil on linen - 90x120cms
Artist statement
It is a relaxing Saturday. The warmth of the Autumn afternoon pervades the cafes along the street. A great time to stroll with time to spare, or meet with friends and family for a leisurely lunch.
This marvellous ambience is to be discovered in many towns and cities throughout Australia.
As with numerous visual artists through history, I find these pleasurable, atmospheric urban scenes immensely appealing and enjoy painting the interaction of people embraced by the patterns of glowing light and dappled shadows.
Gallipoli Art Prize 2017 Shortlisted finalist
Love, loyalty and separation - 45 x 120 cms oil and graphite on linen
Love, loyalty and separation
'I shall keep my tryst with you, some morning when the dawn shall break upon a world where hope is new'
Artist - Susan Sutton
VF 346657 and VX 26884 were my parents.
Their 1939 - 1945 story was similar to thousands of young couples at that time.
Committed and loyal to Australia, my parents voluntarily enlisted independently before meeting and falling in love in Melbourne during the Second World War.
Dad was an Officer [2/2 H A A Regiment 2nd A I F] serving in the Middle East and New Guinea, while Mum [AWAS] was a staff car diver in Melbourne.
Lengthy separations made courting difficult. However love, longing and optimistic hope for the future prevailed in their many existing letters. Married in an all too brief leave mid 1944, they weren't re-united until the War's end.
I have depicted my parents in the khaki uniformed world of their courting years. Dad is seen leading his unit in the Melbourne march prior to Embarkation while Mum is seen on the right following his departure one of their many separations.
I found a poignant poem of longing written by soldier VX 36684. Titled 'To one at home'... the small excerpt in my painting conveys a compassionate glimpse into my parents' lives and into the lives of so many other couples during WW2.
2016 Tattersalls Club Landscape Art Prize Shortlisted finalist
Flood plain - 95 x 75 cms oil on linen
'Flood plain'
Ancient river gums rising up out of an expansive flood plain are images that have never left me.
Immensely majestic, powerfully beautiful, they were both primaeval and timeless in the landscape.
Through this representational subject I sought to immerse myself in a world beyond the original surface vision.
I used my personal interpretations of Nature's bold yet intricate patterns, reflections on water and expressive atmospheric effects to move into a heightened, altered degree of awareness.
2015 Gallipoli Art Prize ... shortlisted finalist
Title - 'Out came the Sherrin'
They were so young and spirited, their energy was intense.
A short break in military order they let loose !
'Out came the Sherrin' !
Back home on green grass and muddy paddocks, they had played weekly for their now sadly depleted country teams.
In the heat and the sandy dust of this remote, foreign land 'Out came the Sherrin' and for a rare, brief, boisterous, glorious moment in time they were 'home' !
I created this image combining my ongoing interest in both Australian sport and military life. In my research I compared historical photographs of country football teams in the early 1900s with those of massed soldiers at the Gallipoli front, particularly in moments of relaxation.
The close companionship and bonding which develops from playing in a team can easily be compared and related to Army life. In 1915 those young men who were little more than boys, naturally would have needed diversion from the shocking hardships they faced.
Amidst the overwhelming mayhem of their situation, I have attempted to convey a momentary outbreak of sheer revelry.
Commission to paint the cover design for the 2014 Footy Almanac
The Footy Almanac 2014
From a painting by Susan Sutton*. Cover design by John Kingsmill (Tabloid). The Footy Almanac 2014 is available from Nov 10
Susan is an established Geelong-Surfcoast artist. She is renowned for her urban and coastal themes and social observations. Interactions of people in everyday life are important subjects and researched sporting themes are strongly represented in this mix.
Long recognised for her surf-lifesaving beach images, mainstream AFL and country club themes [participants and followers] have also become an increasing interest over the years. Of course Susan closely follows the Geelong CATS, but on a particularly personal note has enjoyed following one of her son's playing AFL internationally over the years for the Nashville Kangaroos in the USA and the Dubai Dingoes in the UAE!
October 2014 Acquisition by National Library of Australia, Canberra.
'Jill Jolliffe, East Timor 2004'
Oil and charcoal on canvas
90 x 120cms
The Pictures and Manuscripts Department of the NLA added this portrait by Susan Sutton to their archived collection of writings of investigative journalist/author Jill Jolliffe.
Mural installed at St.John of God Hospital, Geelong
May 2014
In January 2014 Susan Sutton was commissioned by St.John of God Hospital, Geelong to paint a significant work for the entrance foyer of their new hospital. The culmination of three months work in her Geelong West studio is the 7.2 metre long mural which comprises four panels each measuring 1.2 x 1.8 metres.
Installation - the first of four panels
Fourth and final panel moved into position
'Love and compassion'
Oil on linen
Hospitals are about people.
Solitary individuals, groups of friends and extended families make up our emotionally complex humanity.
Through patterns of human movement, the communication of hands and faces and the interweaving of light and shadows, I have endeavoured in this work to express many facets of love and compassion in our multicultural society from birth to maturity.
Susan Sutton
Artist
Geelong 2014
Antiques and Art in Victoria [December 2013 - April 2014]
Lorne Independent January 2014
Significant acqusitions for the National Sports Museum and MCC Museum
In March 2012, the Curator Helen Walpole selected two Susan Sutton oil paintings for the Museum Fine Arts Collection at the MCG.
Helen explained the acquisitions were chosen because they reflected and fitted in to the collection which embraces the evolving social aspect of the MCG over the years.
Night Game at the MCG and Tribal Ritual go beyond the individual sportsmen and teams of the AFL and look at public involvement and ritualistic passions.
Night Game at the MCG
oil on linen
100 x 133 cms Tribal Ritual - Night game at the MCG
oil on linen
76 x 100 cms
ANTIQUES and ART In Victoria December 2011 - April 2012
Susan Sutton working on the Grand theatre - open water swim [triptych] in 2011
Susan Sutton at Qdos Arts
The sensory pleasures experienced in visiting our beaches can be interpreted as if being entertained by and involved in theatrical productions.
So it seems to artist Susan Sutton.
In Beach Theatreher twelfth Solo Exhibition, Sutton draws on her extensive experiences of Victoria's southern beaches, particularly the SurfCoast west of Geelong, to create this diverse panorama of theatrical interpretations in oils on linen.
'Stepping onto a beach, we tend to leave the concerns of the everyday world behind us as we become absorbed in the mood and atmosphere of this particular form of theatre. Through our experiences we are overwhelmingly embraced by the sounds, the lighting and the colours of the stage.
The action, the narratives and the dramas, both natural and human, unfold around us and we become either the players or the audience ... or both !'
Sutton's work with its understanding of beach culture and the southern coastline's natural environment, now is a recognised oeuvre.
There are many enthusiastic and appreciative collectors of the atmospheric oils of one of this region's best known artists.
Authenticity of appearance and detail is important to those who follow the surfing and surf life saving culture along the coast.
The artist does not relent in her research, but at the same time she is able to create artistic interpretations that satisfy those who have appreciation for works of art.
There are some departures from previous depictions of surfing culture however the continued careful study of subjects enables the same high standards to be set while each body of new work such as Beach Theatrereaches further and deeper into artistry and technical levels.
Apart from more generalised works, in this major exhibition there are specific paintings of Lorne's famous 'Pier to Pub' ocean water swimming event now in its 32nd year where 4300 swimmers hit the water ... it is high theatrical drama ... open air theatre of the greatest proportions !
Gentle, relaxed human stories are the others that play out wherever beach gatherings take place.
Then there are the high season summer narratives common to the Australian scene that take place around surf club activities, everything from daily Surf-Rescue patrols to the Little Nipper programs to the theatrics of Surf Carnivals with their colourfully costumed participants.
This exhibited body of work was partly inspired by a request from the Lorne Surf Life Saving Club to create a painting that embraced the Club's current era activities. The artwork forms the wrap-around cover of its substantial newly published History Book.
The research for the commission led the artist more and more deeply into the visual wealth of regional beach culture and the realisation of the human dramas and stories that unfold as theatre on our beaches.
While exploring new directions, Susan Sutton continues to paint in her recognisable style taking great joy and pleasure in the effects of light and atmosphere.
Along with reflections which are often used to create patterns, light is a significant tool in the draughting of almost every work.
At its most extreme, light is used for dramatic effect in creative interpretations of natural matter or phenomena ... along the water's edge in the bold 'Tidal tangle' group of paintings ... or the intricate, highly detailed 'Beach branches' works which are a new departure in subject matter for the artist.
Beach Theatreby Susan Sutton will be an exciting visual experience for all established followers of her work, together with the many new viewers who are sure to visit the highly acclaimed Qdos Arts in Lorne over the summer peak.
Beach Theatre
by
Susan Sutton
Qdos Arts
Allenvale Road, Lorne
Sunday 8th - Saturday 21st January 2012
9am - 5pm daily
Phone 0352 891989
GEELONG ADVERTISER October 26, 2010
Blog post: http//artingeelong.com
Author: Deidre Carmichael
Susan Sutton
Exhibition November 2010
THE GEELONG TIMES October 27, 2010
