Susan Wilson: from Spiro bashing to painting fame

Press, 30 April 1988, Page 23

Susan Wilson: from Spiro bashing to painting fame

Teaching art at Britain's prestigious Royal-Academy Schools is a far cry from being arrested in Auckland for demonstrating against a visit by the United States Vice-President. kThe determination which Took Susan Wilson into radical student , politics IS years ago has Since i carried her through a career in ■nursing and on to become a 1 successful painter in London, i She is.now a member, of a rare breed in London's large] but financially starved artistic munity: a painter who can make i a good living from their painting. • Now aged 36. Susan Wilson had ' a major exhibition opening! at a I prominent London gallery earlier ' I this vear. and will have another solo snow at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery in Christchurch next year The former student radical has won international prizes for her paintings. Prince Charles is among those who have bought her work. While she makes no apologies for her raclicalism of almost two - ■ decades ago. she says her paintings now reflect positive as well as negative aspects of life. Like her one-time flatmate. Tim Shadbolt, she has mellowed with the years — she now even appears irk an advertisement for a credit hard which represents many of [the values she might once' have challenged. In spitelof living in Britain for i almost 12 years. Susan still draws . inspiration from her childhood 1 on both die West Coast and in North Canterbury. She hopes to return to jspend a year drawing and painting the landscapes she ! missed so] much when, while she was a 12-year-old. her family i moved to the North Island. Her paintings are described as being "Tue to Life.” and she hopes they give people "some kind of peace and harmony, and optimism.’ But it was not until she arrived ia Britain in 1976 that she seri(owty considered to be-

By

TONY VERDON

come a full-time printer. She went through the NewZealand education system during the 19605. when it was felt that painting images of life was passe. New Zealand art schools preferred conceptual art. in which she could find no relevance

She was studying at Auckland Teachers College when she became deeply involved in the antiVietnam protests of the late 1960 s and earlv 19705.

She says it was her political activism that led to her being expelled in 1970 from the Teachers Training College after she was arrested for protesting against the visit of the then VicePresident of the United States. Spiro Agnew. "I think we were right to be concerned about what was happening in Vietnam, although I am not quite sure that we really understood it fully." she says now.

The. expulsion embarrassed her family, especially her father, the Rev Collis Wilson, who is now the padre at Whenuapai Air Force Base. W'hile her parents never tried to talk her out of continuing with her strongly held beliefs, she decided it was vital to succeed in a career other than teaching. "I felt terribly bad about being thrown out of training college, and I went to train as a nurse.

"But I had to make myself do that nursing training, and it was hard because in a way I wasn't very suited to becoming a nurse."

She says now that she worked conscientiously as a nurse, but after a period as a sister in the neurosurgical unit at Auckland Hospital, she decided it was time to travel abroad. "I really did care about the patients that I was looking after.

but at the end of the day. when I left it was time to go."!she says. I With a companion! she left New Zealand 'in 1970]and spent three months travelling in South America, a trip which opened hbr eyes about the world.

i An illness forced her to travel oh to London] wherej she spent months recovering in the city's Tropical Diseases Hospital before she waS well enough to resume nursing. "But I’d seen the most fabulous baroque architecture, and I'd seen all this: new art and culture." she savs.

"I'd seen .life in the Andes amongst the Indians. I'd seen sights that I’d, never dreamt Td see. and it had a real effect on me because I (Started drawing in South America, and 1 continued drawing a lot when I got to Europe." J

! After her]'first visit to the National Portrait Gallery in London. she began to think it was possible to become la full-time painter. d I.

I i She cast aside herj New Zea-land-bred assumptions that art which reflected real life was redundant. "I had beep in hospital seeing people dying.] and nuijsing people through all | sorts ’ of circumstances — I had seen! quite a lot of life. I think, and when I saweven more overseas I got a real shock.

■ “And wheii I came here and looked at thej National Gallery, which] is full] of life images, and images of the world J I suddenly thought I could do id" | She: found! painters like Ron Kitto and Lucien Freud painting the kind of Work she wanted to do. ■ "They werje al! painting about their everyday ...lives. and it

wasn't seen as being stupid or out of date or banal — they were setting a pace."

Showing more determination, she managed to secure a hardwon place in a: course at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, where she studied from 197 S until 1982. when she was admitted as a student to the Royal Academy Schools.

She does not regret her time as a nurse, believing equipped her well for work as an artist.

".As a nurse, you do not swan around waiting for the urge to come." she says.

She now puts her reputation for being something of a workaholic down to her nursing background.

Susan Wilson began teching at the Royal Academy Schools in 1986. It is another tribute to her talent — rarely does the prestigious institution employ teachers so soon after their graduation from its course.

She has also been the Fellow of Painting at the Cheltenham School of Art. and does some teaching of art at Wolverhamp ton Polytechnic in the Midlands. She won fist year's Johr Player Portrait] ’Award at tht National Portrait Gallery, anc regularly 'akes part in ’ majo in London and else where.

She is now married to ai Englishman, and has returned ti New Zealand for visits twic< since 1976. She plans a furthe visit to coincide] with her exhibi tion in Christchiiirch next year. She is keen to return to thplaces where she grew up. Sh was bom in Dunedin, where he father was studying at Kno College. Her father later had parish on the West Coast.

Later, they moved across th Southern Alps ]to Waikari, i North Canterbury.

One day. she] wants to retur and paint the, landscapes sh recalls as .a child.