Susan Norrie

Lavished Living, 1983-1984
oil on plywood
183.0 x 123.0 cm

SOLD

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Provenance
Mori Gallery, Sydney
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1984

Exhibited
Australian Visions: 1984 Exxon International Exhibition, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, 25 September - 25 November 1984
Australian Visions: 1984 Exxon International Exhibition, Art Gallery of NSW and touring, 1985, cat.39

Literature
D Waldman, B Churcher & M Holloway, Australian Visions: 1984 Exxon International Exhibition, exh.cat., New York, 1984, cat. 52, illus. p.88
Australian Visions: 1984 Exxon International Exhibition, Art Gallery of NSW and touring, 1985, exh. cat.39, pp.20-21
M Gilchrist, "Male Monoliths, Female Symbols", Art & Australia, Vol. 23, No.2, Summer 1985, ref. p.209, illus. 207,
R Marginson & J Holder, Susan Norrie, University of Melbourne Gallery, 1986, exh. cat., illus. p.8

Susan Norrie's Lavished Living, 1983-84 was shown in the historic exhibition, Australian Visions, held in 1984 at the Guggenheim Museum, New York. From her series of paintings from 1982-84, commonly referred to as the Lavished Living series, the title is a pun on the middle-class preoccupation with the ever-popular magazine, Vogue Living.

Norrie's inspirations for this painting series drew from her research on the Australian landscape tradition, 19th century botanical drawings and the private sketchbooks of colonial women. An examination of the role of women in colonial society and the issues migrants endured over the land, are concerns debated in Norrie's work from this time to her most recent video work.

In this series she presents her own interventionist history - one which questions the presence of the female domain in the Australian colonial landscape. A contradiction of the paradigms of history and tradition permit Norrie to create her own narrative of colonialism where femininity has entered the realm of the masculine. A rich, fertile and imagined land challenges assumptions of truth, history and cultural memory allowing the viewer to question the construction of their own cultural narrative.

Her direct reference to history is a tongue-in-cheek appropriation of Eugene von Guerard's romantic vision. His Mt William from Mt Dryden, 1857 is consumed by her voluptuous archaic ruins. Thick, heavy paint enables monumental and opulent motifs reminiscent of Georgia O'Keefe to seduce the viewer into believing that history can be redeemed, that fiction is truth and that truth is inconclusive. She presents some complex and serious issues in a beautiful, lustrous and harmonious image.

The painting was produced during Norrie's residency at the University of Melbourne during 1984.

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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 comments on consumerism found in her series 'Tall Tales and True'
(1986-1987) and 'Peripherique' (1989), or 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, Norrie’s
diverse oeuvre is challenging and, at times, polemical in its honest
deconstruction of modern society.

After studying painting at the National Art School, Sydney and the National
Gallery School, Melbourne in the 1970s, Norrie began creating films and
installation pieces in the mid-1990s; works that blur the line between art and documentary.
The beauty of Norrie’s works – whether it be painting, drawing, installation or
video – is Norrie's control of media and materiality. 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. In 1987, she
won the first Moet & Chandon prize for an artist under 35, which became a
pivotal point in her career. Since then, she has held residencies at Greene
Street Studio, New York, and in New Zealand and Germany. She received the 1997
Seppelt Prize, Contemporary Art Award, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. In
1999 she received an Australia Council Fellowship, and in 2004 she received an
APA Scholarship for PhD Studies at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Norrie’s work has been exhibited in many international and national
surveys of contemporary art. She represented Australia at the 2007 Venice
Biennale, and has been in important group shows including the Montreal Biennale (2015); the Biennale of Sydney (2014, 2004); the Yokohama Triennale (2011); In the Balance: Art for a Changing World,
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2010); and Figuring Landscapes, Tate Modern, London (2008). Norrie's work has been written on extensively and is held in all state and most regional gallery
collections of Australia, as well as in the Auckland City Art Gallery and the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.