Susan Norrie

Samoan Series: Somewhere, 2010-2011
oil on canvas

131 x 195 cm
signed, dated and inscribed with title ‘Susan Norrie/2010-2011/SAMOAN SERIES/SOMEWHERE’ (on the reverse)

SOLD

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Provenance
Mori Gallery, Sydney
Private collection, Sydney


For many years Norrie and her family would regularly travel to Samoa for their holidays, visiting the village of Lalomanu. In 2009 this beautiful place was the epicenter of an earthquake, with the subsequent tsunami stripping the surrounding amazing coral reef.

A few years later, when some of the village had been rebuilt, Norrie attended the wedding of an Australian woman and a Samoan man.  She witnessed the preparations for the wedding that took days to create, photographing the event, and later developing the image through her extensive screen printing and painting techniques.  The energy, lushness and colour of the wedding, contrasts with the grey of the sea, devoid now of the once abundant coral and sea life.

It could be seen to have an element of National Geographic’s in this work but equally there is a considered sense of another world. Although a tourist destination, it is a poor island but with great resilience and beauty.

  • Samoan Series: Somewhere

Image courtesy of the artist


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Susan Norrie's preoccupation with politics and the environment have always informed the subject matter of her work. From the feminist overtones of her earlier series 'Lavished Living', (1983-1984) and 'Objet D'Art' (1988); to her cynical comments on consumerism found in her series 'Tall Tales and True' (1986-1987) and 'Peripherique' (1989); to the more recent video works 'Undertow' (2002) and the geologically and politically volatile view of Indonesia documented in 'Havoc', seen at the 2007 Venice Biennale.

The beauty of all these works, whether it be painting, drawing, installation or video is Norrie's wonderful power over surface texture and material. The tactile quality of her surfaces, are often a contradictory experience to the harsh reality of the stories she tells.

From the moment Norrie began exhibiting in 1982, her work has been highly regarded for being both conceptually and materially advanced. It was the winning of the first Moet & Chandon prize for an artist under 35 that was a pivotal point in her career, and her work has been exhibited in many international and national surveys of contemporary art. Norrie's work has been written on extensively and is held in all state and most regional gallery collections of Australia.