Susie Althorp’s best life
Visual artist Susie Althorp was the recipient of Country Arts SA’s prestigious Breaking Ground award, culminating in her upcoming exhibition skopos, meaning “to see, view, examine or consider”.
Tell us a bit about what you do.
I am a visual artist based on the Yorke Peninsula. As the recipient of Country Arts SA 2025 Ground Breaking award, I have spent the past 12 months working with a mentor, renowned Adelaide-based artist Catherine Truman, creating my exhibition skopos. My work is informed by the idea of “making visible that world that no one gets to see”. Skopos is an invitation to experience a magical encounter with unseen parts of our underwater world.
I also volunteer at the South Australian State Herbarium in the Adelaide Botanic Garden, reframing the herbarium as a site of creative inquiry. I use microscopes, slides, and lenses to explore how we observe, classify and emotionally respond to the natural world, working across ceramics, sculpture and installation.
Describe the best day of your life.
Seeing my daughters, Becky, now 26, and Alice, now 24, for the first time is the most memorable thing. Nothing compares to that experience of seeing a new human being you have created, come into the world. So miraculous.
Also, the opening of my honours exhibition where I stood amongst a porcelain installation resembling an underwater kelp forest, bathed in yellow light and the realisation the artist career I imagined in my school years had come to realisation.
Prior to my art career, I was a registered nurse, having trained at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, then I did district/community nursing in the Murray Mallee and Mannum areas.
What is your most treasured photograph and why?
This photograph of my mum Jan as a child, who passed away too young aged just 67. The smile she had as a young child was full of innocence and mischief.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
Don’t live your life around other people’s expectation, follow your passions.
What brings you joy in life?
Spending time with loved ones, especially my family and friends., my whippets and greyhound, being in my studio playing with clay, beachcombing, looking for new seaweed, gardening and anything to do with nature, except things that slither and crawl.
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Describe the best meal you’ve ever eaten.
Fresh calamari from the Penneshaw Hotel on Kangaroo Island.
What was your best purchase?
The current house my family lives in – an 1860s house on Yorke Peninsula, full of character, surrounded by bush and farmland, very peaceful and close to the beach. It has a big block for our menagerie of sheep, goats, geese and soon to be chickens. It was a reset into a new lifestyle and pace.
What are the best qualities of your favourite person?
Unconditional love, sense of humour, willingness to help others, random acts of kindness.
What are the best five songs on your playlist?
Paul Kelly – Deeper Water
Norah Jones – Lonestar
Melody Gardot – Love Me Like a River Does
INXS – What You Need
Etta James – At Last
Susie’s exhibition skopos is on at Praxis Artspace from August 22 to September 13.