Artist Statement
Be still. and silent. Look and listen. Breathe. Feel. Everything is Connected.
Artist Biography 2024
Sue Stevens is an ecologist and multi-disciplinary artist.
Sue’s strongly-rooted connection with nature has grown out of her Celtic and Norse ancestry and adapted to, and bloomed from, transplantation to her birthplace and home of south-eastern Australia.
Sue seeks to maintain an ecologically sustainable art practice that reflects her lived experience in today’s environments. This practice includes working with textiles; collage; reused, reclaimed and found objects and materials; poetry; and photography. Sue’s studies in fine art at Melbourne Polytechnic, in agroforestry at the University of Melbourne, and in vegetation management and ecology at the University of New England, where she graduated with a Master of Natural Resources, bring the scientific, aesthetic, and practical together in her work.
Sue’s ecological restoration practice focusses on healing country by reinstating plants, habitats and character of place to disturbed and urbanised landscapes, while aiming to create resilient vegetation communities that can keep up with our changing climate. Her revegetation designs reflect her connection to the land where she works, and are created in conversation with the landscape rather than on a screen. In her art practice, Sue explores and documents nature in urban and non-urban landscapes and her responses to them.
Sue’s work also encompasses the importance of plants and nature for human health. She has been involved in many associated community engagement projects, including projects with Birdlife Australia, Peats Ridge Festival, and numerous Landcare groups and as a guest lecturer on Biodiversity Sensitive Urban Design at the University of Sydney. Sue is also a qualified meditation teacher who practices ‘deep listening’.
Sue has, and continues to, work collaboratively with The Tree Veneration Society, having been involved with TVS projects at the Beams Festival in Chippendale, The Green Square Arts and Community Initiative, the Auburn Refugee Centre, and as Co-curator of the Tree Tales 2023 exhibition at Chrissie Cotter Galley, Camperdown.
Awards
Winner – Inner West Community Art Prize (Cooks River Art Prize) 2014
Publications
Book Chapter: Aesthetically Pleasing Plantings: Restoring Native Vegetation in Coastal Sydney inUsing the Visual and Performing Arts to Encourage Pro-Environmental Behaviour, edited by David Curtis. Cambridge Scholars 2020
