Susan Hawkins and Clare Rae
Susan Hawkins and Clare Rae Irrational Behaviour
16 February –10 March 2018
For their two-person exhibition at Sutton Projects Clare Rae and Susan Hawkins have explored ideas of resilience and repetition, creating works using a call and response methodology to explore parallels and the potential for conceptual crossover within their practices. Both artists engage in themes of domesticity through the use of material objects in spatial contexts. Often employing an absurdist approach to art-making, the resulting works in this exhibition are gently humorous and simultaneously uncomfortable, traversing the sometimes awkward and complex territory between bodies and materials.
Born and raised in Gunnedah, NSW, Susan Hawkins is currently based between Brisbane and Melbourne. An emerging artist with a playful, process-oriented practice, Hawkins received a Bachelor of Fine Art (double major of sculpture and jewellery and small objects) from the Queensland College of Art in 2014. Exhibiting for five years, she has been a part of many group shows, including the Willoughby Sculpture Prize, 2013 in Sydney. In 2014 she was a finalist in the prestigious Gas Award, GUAG, Queensland College of Art, in 2016 a finalist in the Gold Coast Art Awards, Gold Coast City Art Gallery and a finalist in the Redlands Art Awards, Redland Art Gallery. Since Graduating Hawkins has held two solo exhibitions, Make of Me at Blindside Melbourne in 2016 and in 2017 The Remainder at Metro Arts Brisbane.
In her photographic practice Clare Rae explores ideas of performance and gesture to interrogate and subvert dominant modes of representation. Her work is informed by feminist theory, and presents an alternate and often awkward experience of the female body. Known for her engagement with domestic and institutional spaces, recently Rae’s work has been captured and exhibited in locations such as the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), the National Gallery of Victoria, Monash University, the Abbotsford Convent, and the Substation, Melbourne. Rae completed a Master of Arts by research in 2014 at Monash University, and received first class Honours in Fine Art in 2009 at RMIT University. Her work is held in public and private collections nationally, including Artbank, The National Gallery of Victoria, Monash University, and RMIT University.