Susan Norrie at Nancy Hoffman Gallery

October 3 - 31, 2001

The October 2001 exhibition at Nancy Hoffman Gallery will be new work by Susan Norrie based around her investigations of the environment and weather. This is the artist's first New York show in three years. The exhibition opens on October 3rd and continues through October 31st.

"Forecast," a recent body of work by Susan Norrie, continues the artist's environmental investigations, especially those events and circumstances that remind us of delicate and, at times, precariously balanced ecologies.

Inspired by meteorology and as the title suggests, our reliance on "prediction," the two series of paintings and two large-scale super-scans that make up this exhibition relate to Norrie's installation projects, "ERR" at the Melbourne International Biennial 1999 and Liverpool Biennial 1999 and "Thermostat" at Kiasma, Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki 2001.

Like these preceding projects, the exhibition title has extended references. "Forecast" is obviously based on weather conditions, long-range climatic predictions and cyclical patterns, but as with the installations "ERR" and "Thermostat," there is a reminder of industrial pollution and global warming. While the word "forecast" may focus on prediction and an everyday activity we take for granted, equally it implies uncertain...the unpredictability of natural (and man-made) forces.

The exhibition comprises two series of small, box-framed, oil on canvas works which characteristically combine texts with painterly surfaces. One sequence, like stenciled plaques or labels, lists types or classifications of gale-force winds; the second grouping consists of screened recipes or formulae of chemical combinations that, supposedly, have the capacity to alleviate adverse climatic conditions. Linking the sets of paintings is a pair of large-scaled photo-based works-reproduced from photographs taken earlier this year by the artist at Sydney's meteorological bureau. Each morning a hydrogen balloon is sent off at first light to gather atmospheric information from which forecasts are made. The before and after images here-the caged balloon and the empty shed-remind us how our knowledge of the world is so often based on the flimsiest of constructs, on the most fragile and simplest of things.

Susan Norrie was born in Sydney, Australia in 1953. She was educated at the National Art School, Sydney and Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. She was Artist-in-Residence at Art and Industry, Christchurch, New Zealand; Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne and University of Western Sydney, Australia; ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany; and a Visiting Scholar, University of Indiana, Bloomington. She was a recipient of the Australia Council Fellowship; Moet & Chandon Fellowship, France; and the Seppelt Prize, Contemporary Art Award, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Susan Norrie's work has been exhibited at the Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock; Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York;. and in an exhibition traveling to Bergstrom-Mahler Museum, Neenah, Wisconsin; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Louisiana State University School of Art Gallery, Baton Rouge; Oklahoma City Art Museum, Oklahoma; Selby Gallery, Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida; Wichita Art Museum, Kansas.

The artist's work has been shown internationally at the Centre d'Arte Contemporain Passages, Troyes, France; City Gallery, Wellington; Foire International d'Art Contemporain, Stockholm; Fondation de la Tapisserie des Arts du Tissu, Belgium; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Liverpool Biennial, England; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Neue Berliner Kunstverein; and Nykytaiteen Museo, Valtion Taidemuseo, Helsinki. Australian venues include the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Australian National Gallery at Canberra; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Centre for the Arts Gallery, Hobart; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Victoria; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; University of Melbourne; and Wollogong City Gallery, among others.

Susan Norrie's work is in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Auckland City Art Gallery, New Zealand; Australian National Gallery, Canberra; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, New South Wales; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and Wollongong City Gallery, Wollongong.