Susan Norrie

Last updated

Susan Norrie
Born1953
Sydney, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Alma mater National Art School, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria Art School, Melbourne
Movement Contemporary art
Website www.susannorrie.com

Susan Norrie (born 1953) is an Australian artist working primarily with found film and original video installations to explore political and environmental issues. In 2007 she represented Australia at the 52nd Venice Biennale.

Contents

Early Painting

Norrie studied as a painter at the National Art School, Sydney (1972–73) and the National Gallery School, Melbourne (1974–76). In 1980 the Art Gallery of New South Wales included her in a group exhibition. In 1983 they bought one of her paintings; and the following year she was included in the 'Australian Visions: 1984 Exxon International Exhibition' at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.". [1]

Her 1986 painting ‘Fête’ depicting Mickey mouse dressed as a clown won the inaugural Moët & Chandon art award affording her the opportunity to work in France, but Norrie had "an ambivalent relationship to painting". [2] She began focusing more on using text rather than figures in her paintings (such as in her ‘Peripherique’ (1988) and ‘Room for error’ (1993) series) and then in the 1990s switched to experimenting with film as a more effective medium for her political and environmental commentary. [3]

In 1999 she received an Australia Council Fellowship.

Twentyfirst Century Video Work

During the first two decades of the 21st Century, Norrie focused on the Asia-Pacific incorporating footage of environmental and humanitarian disasters that impacted the region in large-scale video projections. Norrie's 2002 work 'Undertow' commissioned by the Melbourne Festival for the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, was a six-screen mix of storms, dust clouds and thermal mud pools. Art critic Andrew Frost said it suggested impending global catastrophe: "Like much of Norrie’s work, Undertow invoked a sense of the uncanny, produced in part from the projection of these images at great scale." [4]

Norrie's 2003 work 'Passenger', created for the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, juxtaposed images of New Zealand glow worm caves and insect swarms with scientific experiments and industrial ducts on six-screens. Tate curators Sook-Kyung Lee and Lena Fritsch described it saying: "Her work has addressed issues of technological advancement, natural and manmade disasters, climate change and other ecological crises, and is increasingly concerned with the conflicts between humankind and nature." [3]

Her 2005 smaller single-channel work 'Black Wind' commissioned by the Amsterdam Sinfonietta  [ nl ] combined indigenous descriptions of the fallout from the British nuclear tests at Maralinga and footage of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.

She represented Australia at the 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007, with Callum Morton and Daniel von Sturmer. Her large-scale work 'Havok', commissioned by the Australia Council for the Arts, was exhibited in three rooms of the Palazzo Giustinian Lolin, Venice. [4] The work focused on the Lusi mud volcano disaster in Indonesia that was blamed on the local gas drilling. She returned to the subject again in her 2016 work 'aftermath'. [5] Media and communication professor Larissa Hjorth described the latter work as: "a meditative contemplation on the terrible sublime of environmental disasters in which humans, while causing such crises, have little power to control and correct." [6]

Since then other significant exhibitions have included ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe 2008; the Edinburgh International Festival 2009, Yokohama Triennale 2011, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag 2013; Biennale of Sydney 2014; the Montreal Biennale, 2014–2015; and Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne 2016.

Collecting

In 2015 Norrie's painting 'Tall Tales and True (Pinocchio)' 1986 sold at auction for A$42,500. [7]

Her works are in the collections of major galleries in Australia, including the Australian National Gallery, Canberra, the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and internationally at the Auckland City Art Gallery and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

A portrait of Susan Norrie by Australian photogrpher Sonia Payes is in the collection of the Museum of Australian Photogrphay. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Kame Kngwarreye</span> Aboriginal Australian artist (1910–1996)

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was an Aboriginal Australian artist from the Utopia community in the Northern Territory. She is one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of Australian art.

Sarah Sze is an American artist and professor of visual arts at Columbia University. She has exhibited internationally and her works are in the collections of several major museums. Sze's work explores the role of technology and information in contemporary life utilizing everyday materials. Drawing from Modernist traditions, Sze's work often represents objects caught in suspension.

Janet Laurence is an Australian artist, based in Sydney, who works in photography, sculpture, video and installation art. Her work is an expression of her concern about environment and ethics, her "ecological quest" as she produces art that allows the viewer to immerse themselves to strive for a deeper connection with the natural world. Her work has been included in major survey exhibitions, nationally and internationally and is regularly exhibited in Australia, Japan, Germany, Hong Kong and the UK. She has exhibited in galleries and outside in site-specific projects, often involving collaborations with architects, landscape architects and environmental scientists. Her work is held in all major Australian galleries as well as private collections in Australia and overseas.

Fiona Margaret Hall, AO is an Australian artistic photographer and sculptor. Hall represented Australia in the 56th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2015. She is known as "one of Australia's most consistently innovative contemporary artists." Many of her works explore the "intersection of environment, politics and exploitation".

Mike Parr is an Australian performance artist and printmaker. Parr's works have been exhibited in Australia and internationally, including in Brazil, Cuba, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States.

Imants Tillers, is an Australian artist, curator and writer. He lives and works in Cooma, New South Wales.

Vivienne Joyce Binns is an Australian artist known for her contribution to the Women's Art Movement in Australia, her engagement with feminism in her artwork, and her active advocacy within community arts. She works predominantly in painting.

Hanna Kay is an Australian artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Jacir</span> Palestinian artist and filmmaker (born 1972)

Emily Jacir is a Palestinian artist and filmmaker.

Susan Dorothea White is an Australian artist and author. She is a narrative artist and her work concerns the natural world and human situation, increasingly incorporating satire and irony to convey her concern for human rights and equality. She is the author of Draw Like da Vinci (2006).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery</span>

Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery is an art gallery in Sydney, owned and operated by Roslyn Oxley and her husband Tony Oxley. The gallery has been a longstanding contributor to regional, national and international art fairs, and supporter of a range of mono-disciplinary and interdisciplinary contemporary artists. Artists represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery include Isaac Julien, Yayoi Kusama and representatives for Australia and New Zealand at the Venice Biennale.

June Yap is a Singaporean curator, art critic, and writer. She is currently the Director of Curatorial & Collections at the Singapore Art Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shirley Tse</span> Hong Kong-born American contemporary artist (born 1960)

Shirley Tse is an American contemporary artist born in Hong Kong. Tse's work is often installation based and incorporates sculpture, photography and video, and explores sculptural processes as models of multi-dimensional thinking and negotiation. She is faculty in the School of Art at California Institute of the Arts, and was the Co-Director of the Program in Art from 2011-2014. She is co-organizer of the ReMODEL Sculpture Education Now symposia series and has been visiting faculty at Yale School of Art, Northwestern University, California College of Arts and Crafts, and Claremont Graduate University.

Alexie Glass-Kantor is an Australian curator. Since 2013, she has held the position of Executive Director of Artspace Visual Arts Centre in Sydney.

Simryn Gill is a Singapore-born artist who specializes in sculpture, photography, drawing, writing and publishing. Throughout her career, Gill has presented her art at several significant events, including Germany's Documenta art show and the Venice Biennale, and is one of Australia's most famous contemporary artists. Gill lives between Sydney, Australia, and Port Dickson, Malaysia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judy Watson</span> Australian artist

Judy Watson is an Australian Waanyi multi-media artist who works in print-making, painting, video and installation. Her work often examines Indigenous Australian histories, and she has received a number of high profile commissions for public spaces.

Jennifer Watson is an Australian artist known for her paintings that combine text and images.

Mikala Dwyer is an Australian artist born in 1959 in Sydney. She is a contemporary sculptor who was shortlisted with fellow artist Justene Williams to represent Australia at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

Miriam Stannage (1939–2016) was an Australian conceptual artist. She was known for her work in painting, printmaking and photography, and participated in many group and solo exhibitions, receiving several awards over her career. Her work was also featured in two Biennales and two major retrospective exhibitions.

Malaluba Gumana is an Australian Aboriginal artist from northeast Arnhem Land, who has gained prominence through her work in painting and the production of larrakitj, the memorial poles traditionally used by Yolngu people in a mortuary ceremony.

References

  1. ↑ "Susan Norrie" . Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  2. ↑ "fête 1986" . Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  3. 1 2 "Susan Norrie Artist profile" . Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  4. 1 2 "Susan Norrie Artist" . Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  5. ↑ Stephens, Andrew (13 March 2016). "Artist Susan Norrie enters dangerous territory in exploration of human endurance". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
  6. ↑ "Susan Norrie: Field Work 2006-2016 Review" . Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  7. ↑ "Past Catalogue" . Retrieved 7 January 2019.
  8. ↑ https://maph.org.au/artworks/837/
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.