Susan Wilson


-biography
-retail price guide
-bibliography
   
       



South Island II,
1991
Self-Portrait with
Kete, 1998
Farewell Stelae II,
1998
Self-Portrait as
Nurse, 1998

Toledo Self-Portrait,
1998

SW, 1998
Night Garden,
2001
Naked Girl,
2005
Rahera Windsor
- Kuia, 2003/4
I go from Picton to
Kaikoura, 2004
Girl, 2005
Ascoli Piceno Still Life,
2005

© 2006. Susan Wilson (images) and E M Caughey (text).
No reproduction of images or text without written permission from the copyright owner.
  

BIOGRAPHY

SUSAN WILSON, born 1951 in Dunedin.

Susan Wilson trained as a neurosurgical nurse at Auckland Public Hospital before setting off in 1976 to Europe via Latin America. She studied painting in London at Camberwell and the Royal Academy, and her expressionist style points to the then-prevalent influence of the Northern European tradition of figuration and humanistic painting.
In 1987 Wilson travelled with her parents to Cassino, her father's first trip back to Italy since seeing active service there during the war. Their trip was inevitably coloured by his memories of that time, and Wilson's 1993 'Cassino Revisited' paintings - still lifes, landscapes and portraits - resulted from their experiences there. In her series of self-portraits painted in 1998, Wilson uses relics from and memories of her parents' lives, combined with self-portraits, to create poignant images that explore her understanding of their histories and of her place in the world without them. From her mother's personal belongings and her father's military decorations, Wilson weaves her own imagery of commemoration as she reflects different parts of her own life journey.
Wilson has received awards in several open submission UK art competitions, including a commendation in the John Player Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 1987, and the Regional Artists Prize at The Royal College of Art in 2003, and again at the Mall Galleries, London, in 2005. In 1984 she was awarded an Italian Government "Borso di Studio" to Venice and the Veneto, and in 1985, the Richard Ford Award to Madrid to work in the Prado Museum. She retains a passionate interest in Spanish painting. In 1992, she received an Abbey Scholarship to live at the British School at Rome.
Despite living in London, Wilson retains a strong attachment to New Zealand and continues to exhibit in Auckland every other year. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections principally in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.



OTHER LINKS
Artist's website
Susan Wilson at Drumcoon Gallery, UK - more images
Katherine Mansfield stories - Waikato Uni site


GALLERIES
Edmiston Duke Gallery, Auckland
Jonathan Grant Galleries, Auckland
Judith Anderson Gallery, Hawke's Bay
Browse & Darby, London

 

GUIDE
(approximate, as at January 2005)
$3000 - $12,000 depending on size


SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
2005 The Spectator"Among the Angel Band", Susan Wilson's solo show at Browse & Darby, London, by Laura Gascoigne.
2005 BBC Arts Programme"The Culture Show" Susan Wilson contrasts her self-portraits and the origins of their making with those by Frida Kahlo in the exhibition at Tate Modern.
2005 New Zealand House & Garden"The Illustrated Katherine Mansfield" by Victoria Hinton, on Wilson's touring exhibition.
2003 University of Waikato Occasional Paper 2, 'Katherine Mansfield Stories & Pictures', Conal McCarthy.
2002 Art New Zealand 103 'Worlds Apart', Richard Wolf.
2001 New Zealand Herald 'Outbreak Backs Figure Argument', T.J.Macnamara review of Judith Anderson Gallery exhibition.
1998 New Zealand Herald 'Linked realms and generations', T.J. McNamara on Self-Portrait Exhibition at Judith Anderson Gallery.
1998 Next 'Home Thoughts from Abroad', Alice Shopland.
1998 BBC Arena 'The Frame'.
1997 Art News, New Zealand 'Lost & Found', Lois McIvor.
1997 Modern Painters, Blake Morrison on 'In the Looking Glass'.
1997 The Voice, Review of Susan Wilson solo show at the City Gallery, Leicester (UK).
1996 Artists' Newsletter (UK) 'In my father's footsteps', Wilson describes her residency as a painter at The British School at Rome.
1995 Harper & Queen 'The Art of the Mater', Kate Millar profile of Susan Wilson in conjunction with Art 95.
1995 New Zealand House & Garden 'At Home with the Artist Susan Wilson', Louise Chunn.
1994 Artists' Newsletter (UK) 'Women in Focus', Rosie Millard.
1994 Listener 'Mountains of Memory', Merrilyn Chambers reveiws touring exhibition 'Return to Cassino'.
1990 Arts Review, Medina Hammad reviews 'The Artist Abroad' at the Usher Gallery, Lincoln.
1990 Arts Review, Edward Phelps reviews Susan Wilson's solo show at Jane Roberts/Max Rutherstone Gallery.
1987 The Independant 'Sanity in an Insane Situation', Andrew Graham Dixon describes Susan Wilson's prizewinning painting in the National Portrait Gallery John Player Competition.



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