As her latest exhibition The Last Tide Waiter opens at Adelaide Central School of Art, and her striking work Hardboiled graces the cover of the 2025 SALA Program, Sue reflects on the power of visual art to question, disrupt and connect.
Q: Can you tell us about your practice and what inspires you to create your work?
SK: My studio practice involves working with the process of bricolage and photomontage where I reassemble found objects and images to create new works which are often dark and uncanny. The inspiration for my artwork comes from digging deep into historical archives and family history to reflect on and understand how social and environmental practices from the past continue to impact the present.
Q: Is it important for your work to speak to the viewer? How do you convey your ideas through your work?
SK: I hope my works evoke a haunting or spectral presence that draws people in to reflect on the stories beneath the surface. For example, For better or worse (2010) is based on an 1890s wedding portrait of my great-grandparents, who ran a pastoral property north of the Eyre Peninsula. I introduced a ram and goat skull, a gun made from feral goat bones, and a dead night parrot – now believed extinct – to disrupt the settler colonial narrative and question the impact of colonisation. A life-size projection of this work is currently on display in the Art Gallery of South Australia, alongside other photomontages I’ve produced over the years as part of the AGSA Studio activities during SALA.
Q: Please tell us about your SALA exhibition and your work that appears on the cover of the SALA Program?
SK: The Last Tide Waiter stems from historical research into a 19th-century ancestor who worked as a tide waiter on the remote island of Mauritius. For this exhibition, I’ve reimagined the Adelaide Central School of Art Gallery as an archaic maritime warehouse filled with forgotten goods and strange regalia; reflecting the ongoing currents of imperial conflict, commerce, and trade.
The work featured on the SALA Program cover is Hardboiled, named after an old nickname for a miner’s hat. I’ve attached a silver candelabra to the hat to suggest not only the extractive origins of wealth, but also how the legacy of an unchecked industrial past continues today with our overheating planet.
Q: What is it about SALA that is unique to this state and how would you encourage people to become part of it?
SK: The breadth and inclusive nature of SALA Festival’s platform and program is unmatched and unique in that it brings to light the large and diverse visual arts community spanning South Australia. Whether you’re an artist, collector or viewer, I would encourage everyone to participate in SALA’s extensive program of exhibitions and events
Q: How do you feel visual arts contribute to society and help us understand our world?
SK: I believe visual art has a vital role to play in enriching personal well-being, culture and society more broadly. The process of creating visual art has the capacity to slow us down while reflecting on or responding to the world we live in. Whatever one’s approach, art has the capacity to poetically evoke different meanings to different people. Art can also have social agency in helping to bring new perspectives in how we think or experience the world. I feel we need visual art more than ever to help us slow down and make sense of the challenging and uncertain times we live in.
Find out more at salafestival.com
