Susan Norrie

Reflecting the Past, 2015
oil on canvas
63.0 x 114.0 cm

SOLD

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Provenance
Mori Gallery, Sydney
Acquired from the above by the present owner


The transience of cherry blossoms is taken in Japanese culture as a joyous visual expression of the Buddhist understanding that all things pass. Like dual sides of a coin, their revered beauty and quick death represent for Norrie a link to two of her enduring subjects - feminism and mortality.
This image may reprise the artist's haunting installation 'Undertow' (Art Gallery of New South Wales collection, 2002) where a young girl is carried through a cherry blossom festival in Tokyo.

The process in Norrie’s recent works, involves the use of a photographic image applied with black paint through the screenprinting process. This medium gives the work a flat image, which Norrie has elevated in a mixture of delicate hand brushwork and rivulets of molasses texture that both seduce and repel.

  • Reflecting the Past


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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.