“For six decades Suzanne Archer has expertly balanced beauty with beguiling darkness, earning enviable critical acclaim along the way. These days, in what might be her late style, the artist takes pleasure in the assuredness of her own mastery. — Rex Butler, Art Collector, Jul-Sep 2024.

It has been a lifetime devoted to the intertwining imagery of the Australian bush and coastal landscapes for artist Suzanne Archer. In her work, the vastness is evident; however, it is with the more introverted minor moments that appear like jewels in the crown — visual surprises that focus and delight. A shell from the beach, a broken palm frond, or burnt seed pods and feathers come into focus as we are enveloped in her world.

Archer is an enigmatic artist. Transcending the literal, her imagery is often subliminally coded, transporting the viewer to somehow familiar yet beautifully strange places. Her painting methodology can be wonderfully confounding. Is she painting or drawing? For her, they are one and the same. There is a quality in her painting surface that evokes a sensation in the grand tapestry tradition beginning in the 1500s, where the literal weaving of colour and form into a narrative was central to the vision of its creator.

Archer has a revered place in the contemporary canon of Australian painting. Never curtailing to artistic or curatorial fashion, she has nothing to prove to an art world constantly in search of affirmation. Despite her singular vision, her extensive career to date has seen her win the Wynne Prize for landscape painting and The Dobell Prize for drawing, coupled with her inclusion in the NGA, NGV, Art Gallery of NSW, and numerous regional gallery permanent collections.