ARTIST PROFILE:
Susan Gillham was born in rural Essex, England, and still enjoys depicting the old buildings and harbours of the UK.

Living in Melbourne since 1966, her teenage years were spent exploring the old abandoned buildings in the gold towns of central Victoria with her father Leslie, a successful artist here and in the UK.

Returning to Melbourne in 1976 after studying overseas, she exhibited three watercolours at an Art Show, selling all paintings and gaining an honourable mention for a painting now owned by the Whitehorse City Council, of the old Box Hill brickworks.

Paintings of Victoria and South Australia’s abandoned buildings in towns and on farms were sold at Rotary shows until other commitments took over in the late 1980’s. Many of these buildings have now gone.

Travel to England, Scandinavia, Canada and the USA, and a move to Kalorama in 1999, renewed her interest in watercolours after several years painting in oils with a group in Park Orchards. In 2001 a watercolour of the old Curators cottage at Queens Park, Moonee Ponds, was purchased by Moonee Valley City Council.

Inspired by the incredible variety and beauty of this planet, she now also uses pastel and acrylic to record impressions, recently travelling overland 10,000km from Finland through Estonia, Russia, Siberia, Mongolia and China to Hong Kong.