Susan Dorothea White Bibliography

Equally Talented and Skillful

Susan Dorothea White is an artist equally talented and skillful as a printmaker, a sculptor, and a painter. Her works were well received by the art community and critics when they were recently exhibited here in New York at the Montserrat Gallery, 584 Broadway (SoHo).

White’s prints carry important sociological messages, as exemplified by The Seven Deadly Sins, sombre and serious, done entirely in black and white in a zodiac-like format. The centre circle, “The Eye of Gaia Sees All”, is the core of the message. The seven deadly sins are illustrated in sections around the outside edge of the circle: they are self-effacement, workaholism, sycophancy, squandering, indifference, celibacy, and dieting. Her wry humour shows a bit here.

Her rendering is simple and clear, readily interpreted; colours are clean and pure. Symbolism rather than situation portrayal typifies White’s style. We are shown a man’s bare feet on a tile floor beside a newspaper and milk bottles in The Front Verandah. To Let is similar. In it, a man sits by an iron grillwork gate reading the paper. An advertisement torn from the classified section, a house number, and a page from the newspaper are composed behind and around him … here, too, the message is obvious. Blind is poignant, with three blind figures making their way on what appear to be steps, possibly symbolic of cooperative attainment.

Humour, more pointed than funny, is the thread of continuity throughout Susan Dorothea White’s art, regardless of medium. A case in point is The Long Arm of the Law. It is created with exactly what the title states … a very long black-robed arm extends out into the gallery room with a legal document in its hand! The table-top sculptures are sophisticated and titillating … Close-knit Family—family members’ heads are “knitted” together … To Cut Both Ways—crossed scissor blades are sharpened on both edges … Shy Egg is attempting to conceal itself, and Stretching the Imagination depicts distorted features—stretched eye sockets.

Susan Dorothea White has exhibited her art consistently since studying at the South Australian School of Art. Her work has appeared in solo exhibitions, group exhibitions, and international biennales in Germany, Spain, Australia, Italy, China, Poland, Canada, Yugoslavia, and France. Her work is in public, private, and museum collections worldwide. She is cited in Who’s Who in International Art.