Sue is a visual and community arts practitioner, curator, arts consultant, and project co-ordinator based in Albany, on the south coast of Western Australia, 400kms from Perth.

Sue has worked both nationally and internationally as a Community Cultural Development arts worker, on a diverse range of projects which include: with economically disadvantaged groups in the Philippines; the multicultural community of Christmas Island; numerous remote central desert Aboriginal communities including Balgo, Warburton, Looma, and Alpurrurulam community in the NT; the Hidden Valley Community in Alice Springs with InCite Arts, and more recently a remote Tibetan community in Qinghai Province, China.

Her community cultural development experiences feed and nourish Sue’s visual arts practice and her work is a response to this. She has a degree in Fine Arts from Curtin University and her work has been exhibited widely including New York and Melbourne, and more recently at the Fremantle Arts Centre, Gunyulgup galleries in Yallingup, Elements Art Gallery in Subiaco, and Ayala Museum in Manilla, Philippines.

In 2003 she received the Australia Councils Camden Head Pilot Station Residency in NSW, and in 2007 sat on the Community Partnerships panel of the Australia Council as a peer.

Currently she is the co-ordinator of Open Access, an innovative art studio for ‘at risk’ youth- developed out of a mentoring project with Victorian CCD practitioner Sally Marsden. She was also recently engaged in a regional mentorship program funded by ArtsWA with re-known Perth artist Professor Ted Snell, and two fellow Albany artists.

Sue is also currently the Cultural Planning Co-ordinator for the City of Albany, and secretary of the board of Country Arts WA.

1. Resurrect: an artist-in-residence project for the second half of 2008 initiated by Open Access and run in partnership with the City of Albany/ Vancouver Art Centre and Cleanaway. It will be based at the new Community Waste Education Centre at the Landfill Site and centred on the theme of recycling and environmental issues. The project will culminate in an exhibition at the Vancouver Art Centre. Because of this major project, the artists and participants have decided that the focus on artwork and technique this year is on recycling and the environment. Open Access will host two artists-in-residence- Cecile Williams and Peter Keelan for this project.
2. Digital Media Project: where participants will learn skills in multi-media and are invlived in making a film on Open Access with local award winning media teacher Carlie Beaumont. Headspace is partnering with Open Access on this project.
3. The National Youth Week Alleyway Silhouette Stencil Project: creating public art in an alley way in the CBD. This is a partnership with the Office of Youth Affairs and Bunnings, Albany.
4. 9LIVES: Continued editions of the Open Access Zine with different formats and themes- growing on and expanding its readership and content.