Creativity is in Suzie’s DNA

Suzie Riley believes art is in her blood and while her creative pursuits have enjoyed a number of guises over the journey, it has always been a part of her life.

“I think you are born an artist, I believe it is a sensory personality type and takes many forms,” Suzie said. “For me as a child, it was first drawing, then as an adult more formally, hairdressing, a kind of sculpture and I apologise to those who were part of the spiral perm, mullet era, it was the 80s.”

Formal education, experimentation and collaboration with fellow artists have all been a part of developing that innate artistic talent.

“When art became urgent I studied at the Fremantle School of Art and Design in WA but was called back to SA by a family illness,” Suzie said. “Then along came two beautiful girls and seven years of crafting with them, knitting, spinning, crochet, paper making and of course painting.”

It was during the time Suzie was developing the creative skills of her daughters that she first met Brioni Pridham, who was her partner-in-crime at their recent joint Karatta exhibition in Robe, and has become a treasured colleague and friend.

“Brioni was my youngest daughter’s kindergarten teacher at the Waldorf School and a parent in my eldest daughter’s class,” Suzie said. “We soon discovered a shared history growing up on farms in the South East and holidaying in Robe, and I firmly believe it is these landscapes that have left an imprint upon us both that we express in different ways, but is the reason our work is so harmonious.”

As is so often the case, when Suzie’s children were spending their days at school, Suzie also went back to the classroom, undertaking private tuition with Trevor Newman, who was working at the Adelaide Central School.

“I began with pastels, easy to pick up and put down with children, using them as both a drawing and painting medium, adding methylated spirits so that they became more like a watercolour/gouche,” Suzie said. “I discovered the earth pigments were some of my favourites and that the colours I loved most were found in this early landscape.”

The Coorong became a source of inspiration.

“There is a peace that I love in an untouched landscape that finds its own balance, and I take great delight in organic, irregular patterns,” Suzie said. “Mixing these familiar colours brought me so much comfort and ease.”

The serenity saw Suzie create a work that earned her national recognition at the Paddington Art Prize for landscape painting in Sydney.

“I realised I had found my lifelong direction and following my husband’s retirement we decided to move here (Robe) a year ago,” she said.

“It’s the third time we have called Robe home, the first being 35 years ago and a summer season in the Hair Affair before travelling overseas but my real connection comes from my father who was a fisherman/farmer who dragged a double decker bus to Little Dip and then us every summer thereafter.”

Now Suzie is adding to those childhood memories as she builds her own art practice in the seaside township.

“My practice revolves around a mix of initial plein air sketches gathering a full sensory experience that later fuels further work in the studio,” she said. “I usually start with a thin transparent wash of acrylic or oil, building up with calligraphic mark and thick impasto oil using both palette knife and brush. I love mixing colour and pattern to try and find the underlying rhythm in the landscape, a complicated method that relies on a strong understanding of tonal value and shape.”