Susie Dureau’s The Atmospheric River, 2023, records the weather event of the 2022 New south Wales floods that meteorologists called ‘a great river in the sky’ due to the volume of rain being comparable to a river gathering in the atmosphere. Says Susie of this work, “As the sky-river fell and the earth-river rose, obscuring and revealing landscape elements, I witnessed a reordering of the physical landscape; the world turned upside down. The sounds of rain, birds and cows calling to each other, wind rocking the cantilevered studio, and rainbows mingled with the human spirit emitting from artworks in the gallery spaces.”

The Atmospheric River was made through the Nancy Fairfax Artist In Residence Program where Susie was based during the floods of 2022. Susie was awarded a solo show at the gallery in 2023, through a partnership between the Tweed Regional Gallery and The National Art School, for excellence in painting.