In her latest series, paintings and sculptures focus on relationships—both human and technological—and how these interconnections coexist within the same space.

“We’re being watched, surveilled. All or our data is collected and communicated back to us. Addiction to our devices and social media has wiped out our sense of personal privacy. Where you live, who you love, your relationships, your sexuality, where you work, what you eat, what you purchase, what you watch, what you wear, where you travel, what you listen to, whether you’re happy, whether your sad, your health, your religion, your politics, your finances: they know more about us than we know about ourselves. We create technology and computer intelligence that can compose music, write poems, essays, prose, mimic voices, create realistic images – every bit of data that humans feed AI is catapulted back to us as cognitive bias and yet we don’t trust ourselves to not turn into passive receptors. With the acceleration of AI trajectories are we and our emotions rendered irrelevant, subservient or redundant? Have humans created a projection of ourselves that we can’t control?

The sculptures are grouped as families, either robots or buildings. Whereas the paintings depict human relations, people grappling with existence. What is real? We are constantly seeking purpose and meaning but life is messy and we tend to catastrophise. There is an existential dilemma in being human, trying to think our way through problems whereas the machines are mathematically programmed to leap to the optimal best solutions without having to think, understand or feel lonely.”

Born in Brisbane, Australia in 1960, O’Doherty studied film prosthetics and make-up in Sydney, beginning her early career in film and theatre. In the mid-90s, she was working as an artist, painting in figurative and abstract idioms, expanding her practice with a variety of media in the early 2000s to include mixed media assemblage, textile sculpture, and collage. Susan exhibited 450 painted portraits of visual arts practitioners titled ‘900 Eyes, Domestic Lives’ in 2008-9 at Manly, Tweed River, and Maitland regional galleries. She participated in Macquarie University Gallery’s ‘Reimag(in)ing SomaSex’ and in ‘Diarama’ at Wollongong Art Gallery.

In 2014-17, she collaborated on the major Regional Gallery Touring Exhibition ‘Moving House’ with artist husband Peter O’Doherty, incorporating assemblage and painting of the various rooms of the houses that she lived in as a child.

Marking the centenary of the Anzac Gallipoli landing, the artist participated in commemorative exhibitions ‘Contemporary Gallipoli’, ‘Your Friend the Enemy’ and ‘Wept, Wait and Be Worthy’ at Macquarie University Gallery, S.H. Ervin Gallery, The Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, and regional galleries in Bathurst, Goulburn, Cowra, Hawkesbury, and Grafton NSW. Her exhibition ‘Pinned to the Wall’, looking at sexual politics, domestic violence, and consumerism, traveled to Ballarat, Sydney, and Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery NSW in 2017-2018. In 2021, a series of her textile sculptural heads referring to hospital staff was included in a group exhibition ‘A Conspicuous Object – the Maitland Hospital’ at Maitland Regional Art Gallery.

O’Doherty was selected for the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale in 2019, also participating that year in the Art Central Hong Kong art fair and at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre for the Everyday Madonna exhibition focusing on contemporary depictions of the Madonna and Child. Susan has been a finalist in the Glover Art Prize, Portia Geach Memorial Award, Salon Des Refusés, Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Redlands Art Award, Mosman Art Prize, the National Still Life Award, and KAAF art prize. Her works are in the collections of the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, the City of Sydney, Smorgon Collection, and Regional Art Galleries throughout NSW. The artist currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia.