Suzannah is a mother, artist, community arts worker, and farmer living in the Dungog Shire on the traditional land of the Gringai people, along the Dooribang (Williams River) in New South Wales. She shares her life with her partner, two boys, two dogs, a flock of sheep, and an array of wildlife including resident pythons, koalas, echidnas, goannas, sugar gliders, platypuses, and bandicoots.
Originally from Wingham, NSW, Suzannah’s work remains deeply influenced by the landscape of outback South Australia, where she spent nearly a decade as a community arts worker. This included six years as a Regional Arts Development Officer for Country Arts SA and four years as the Artistic Director of D’faces of Youth Arts, a youth arts organisation in Whyalla. It was there, in her early 30s, that she began to seriously create art in response to the arid environment around her. Although she is now increasingly painting the riparian landscapes near her home, it is the vast lands of outback South Australia that continue to be her primary source of inspiration.
Suzannah has subsequently had four solo shows, including her show from the Grindell’s Hut Residency in the Northern Flinders Ranges. She has been in numerous groups shows and has been a finalist in the Pro Hart Outback Art Prize, The Outback Art Prize, the Basil Sellers Art Prize, the Waverly Art Prize, the Burrinja Climate Change Biennale and the Whyalla Art Prize. She won the Dungog Art Prize in 2022, the pastel section of the Scone Art Prize in 2022, and the Drawing section of the Scone Art Prize in 2023. More recently she was a finalist in the Fleurieu Biennale 2024 and for a second time the Pro Hart Outback Art Prize 2024.
Everyone has a place that resonates with them. A place that holds them even when they are not there. My place of such significance is the space between Whyalla and Port Augusta, to the shore of the Spencer Gulf, up to the edge of the Flinders Ranges. I lived eight years of my twenties and thirties in this space, in a steel and iron ore town called Whyalla on the edge of the Upper Spencer Gulf, South Australia. It was there, amidst the sprinkling of red iron ore dust that I began sketching that arid landscape. But ever since I bid farewell to those saltbush plains, Whyalla has become more than a dot on a map, it has become a psychological space, a space I carry with me. I don’t draw a literal representation of the landscape, I respond through mark making, also a means for me to cope with complex PTSD. My artistic method, therefore, becomes a patchwork of collected shapes, line, landmarks, tiny illustrated stories and familiar forms. This process serves as a vehicle for the deconstruction of my personal experiences within the layers of this distinctive, challenging, yet beautifully raw place.
Education
Bachelor of Art Theory (Honours), College of Fine Arts, University of NSW.
Grad.Dip.Ed (Secondary), Visual Arts, University of Western Sydney
Grad. Cert. Arts Management, University of Technology Sydney
Suzannah attended private classes with Artist, Stephen James (MFA, College of Fine Arts, UNSW) in Branxton and Newcastle NSW. (2009-2013)
Solo exhibitions
A Personal Ecology
Newcastle Art Space, Hamilton East, NSW 1st – 18th October 2015
Long Sleep Plain
Yarta Purtli Gallery, Port Augusta Cultural Centre, Port Augusta, SA
March 5th – April 4th 2009 – Part of the Desert Fringe 2009
The Quiet Light
Works from the Grindell’s Hut Residency , Fountain Gallery, Port Augusta 3rd – 26th May 2007
Selected Group Exhibitions
Suzannah regularly exhibits with the artist collective Dungog by Design, in Dungog NSW
Pro Hart Outback Art Prize, Finalist, Broken Hill City Regional Gallery, NSW 2024
Fleurieu Biennale, Finalist, Fleurieu Art House, McLaren Vale, SA, 2024.
Basil Sellers Art Prize, Finalist, Basil Sellers Exhibition Centre, NSW, Moruya, 2019
Pro Hart Outback Art Prize, Finalist, Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery, 2018
Burrinja Climate Change Biennale, Finalist, Burrinja Cultural Centre,Upwey, VIC, February 2018
City of Whyalla Art Prize, Finalist, Middleback Cultural Centre, October 2017
Outback Art Prize, Finalist, Broken Hill Regional Gallery, July 2016
Well Spring, curated by Stephen James; Cessnock Regional Gallery, March 2015
City of Whyalla Art Prize, Finalist, Middleback Cultural Centre, 2013
Marked – Drawing Now, Cessnock Regional Gallery, NSW 28th Feb – 24th March 2013.
Outback Art Prize, Finalist, Broken Hill Regional Gallery, NSW, 2012
Hunter Valley Art School group show, Lorn Gallery, NSW, 2010
Love Vomited, joint show with Fran Callen, August 2009, Wheatsheaf Hotel, Adelaide
Shortlisted for the Waverley Art Prize, NSW 2008
Outback Art Prize, Finalist, Broken Hill Regional Gallery, NSW, 2007
Hummock Hill Art Prize, Whyalla Art Gallery, SA November 2006
Port Pirie Art Prize, Port Pirie Regional Gallery, SA August 2006
‘New Art 6’, University of SA, Whyalla Campus Gallery, August – September 2006
Prizes/Residency
Winner of the Drawing Prize of the Scone Art Prize 2023 (Judge; Artist Trevor Weekes)
Winner of the Dungog Art Prize 2022 (Judge; Elissa Emerson, Director of the Muswelbrook Regional Arts Centre)
Winner of the Pastel Section, Scone Art Prize 2022, (Judge; Elissa Emerson, Director of the Muswelbrook Regional Arts Centre)
Merit Award, Port Pirie Art Prize 2006, Port Pirie Regional Gallery, SA
Ist prize: Category; ‘Any other medium other than watercolour’, Hummock Hill Art Prize 2006,
Whyalla Art Gallery
Grindell’s Hut Artist Residency, Gammon Ranges (Northern Flinders Ranges) for four weeks during November 2006. Supported and funded by Port Augusta City Council, Northern Regional Development Board, Fountain Gallery and National Parks and Wildlife Services
Community Arts Projects
