Susie Dureau

Susie Dureau b.1974 in Sydney, Australia, is a contemporary visual artist working across oil painting, digital collages, and light installations.

Dureau’s work engages with the tradition of Western landscape painting, extending it beyond its historical role in shaping perceptions of land, ownership, and human dominance over nature. Bringing together broad influences – from the atmospheric sublime of 19th-century Romantic painters to the immersive, process-driven approaches of Land Art pioneers like Nancy Holt, and the gestural materiality of Abstract Expressionists like Helen Frankenthaler – these paintings challenge the separation between nature and culture, offering an alternative vision of landscape as a dynamic and interconnected presence. With deep respect for Indigenous knowledge systems, in which kinship extends beyond the human to include land, water, and non-human life, her work explores these relational networks by integrating scientific data, sound, and traditional Western painting methods.

Her landscape-based art explores the unseen forces that connect humanity with the more-than-human world, merging reality and imagination. Rooted in materiality, her practice employs traditional oil painting techniques with natural pigments and linens. Informed by sound and spectrogram imagery, her multi-sensory works translate auditory experiences into visual form, layering coloured primings over months to create depth and optical complexity.

Susie Dureau lives and works on Garigal and Gayamaygal land, Eora Nation, Sydney,. She is the recipient of the 2025 Northern Beaches Council Residency Award at Eramboo Artist Environment, and won the 2022 Tweed Regional Gallery and Margaret Olly Art Centre Nancy Fairfax (AIR) Award. She has been a finalist in many prestigious awards including the Mosman Art Prize, Calleen Art Award, Paddington Art Prize, Albany Art Prize & Ravenswood Art Prize in Australia, and the Agora Gallery International Art Prize, in New York. In 2021 Susie completed her Master of Fine Arts, at the National Art School, Sydney, and holds a Bachelor of Design Hons (Visual Communications) from the University of Technology, Sydney. In addition Dureau spent three years studying oil painting under the mentorship of artist Charlie Sheard. Susie Dureau has been represented by Curatorial+Co. since 2015.

Photo credit: Katie Holmes