Susan Norrie writes about her series of black and white gouaches on Godzilla: “After making ‘Undertow,’ and my trip to Japan in 2002, I became fascinated with the Japanese way of dealing with trauma and catastrophe (both man-made and natural disasters). This small island not only dealt with the atomic bomb, but continues to deal with the disasters nature can serve up, from earthquakes to tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
Read More“Forecast,” a recent body of work by Susan Norrie, continues the artist’s environmental investigations, especially those events and circumstances that remind us of delicate and, at times, precariously balanced ecologies.
Inspired by meteorology and as the title suggests, our reliance on “prediction,” the two series of paintings and two large-scale super-scans that make up this exhibition relate to Norrie’s installation projects, “ERR” at the Melbourne International Biennial 1999 and Liverpool Biennial 1999 and “Thermostat” at Kiasma, Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki 2001.
Like these preceding projects, the exhibition title has extended references. “Forecast” is obviously based on weather conditions, long-range climatic predictions and cyclical patterns, but as with the installations “ERR” and “Thermostat,” there is a reminder of industrial pollution and global warming. While the word “forecast” may focus on prediction and an everyday activity we take for granted, equally it implies uncertainty…the unpredictability of natural (and man-made) forces.
Susan Norrie was born in Sydney, Australia in 1953. She was artist in residence at the Victoria College of Arts, University of Melbourne and the University of Western Sydney, Australia. She received the Seppelt Contemporary Art Award, Sydney and Moet & Chandon Fellowship, France. She resides in Sydney, Australia.
