Susan Fereday (born 1959) is an Australian artist, writer, curator and educator. She holds a doctorate from

Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has a ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. She was born in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

Biography

Fereday studied to be a photographic technician in Adelaide. She attended

Prahran College The Prahran College of Advanced Education, formerly Prahran College of Technology, was a late-secondary and tertiary institution with a business school, a trade school, and a multi-disciplinary art school that dated back to the 1860s, populated ...

in Melbourne to study photographic art, obtaining her Bachelor of Arts in 1986 and her Master of Arts (Fine Art) in 1992. She performed research Paris in 1996–1997 on a scholarship from Samstag. She received her doctorate from

in 2010. Fereday has been a lecturer in art theory and studio practice at the

Victorian College of the Arts The Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) is the arts school at the University of Melbourne in Australia. It is part of the university's Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. It is located near the Melbourne city centre on the Southbank campus of the ...

(1990–93),

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology RMIT University, officially the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,, section 4(b) is a public research university in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1887 by Francis Ormond, RMIT began as a night school offering classes in art, scienc ...

(1998-2000), and

(2005–08).

Artist

Since the 1980s Fereday has exhibited artworks in various media, including '' objets trouvés'',

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

, and video. She has collected and displayed found photographs taken by anonymous amateurs in the 1950s. Penny Webb places her " Ilsley Green Road" series by an unknown photographer at Sutton Gallery in "country lanes in England in the 1950s," while her series ''Under a Steel Sky'', at West Space in 2008 used similar material, as critic, Robert Nelson notes; "From unrelated sources in the United States . .Fereday has collected pictures of people in cars, on the road, in the countryside." Both commentators understand that the sequencing is intended to create a narrative, as Nelson reports;

They are printed to a large scale, which the original photographers would never have contemplated; but the resolution is consistent. Not knowing the sources, you impute a single narrative to the pictures."

Fereday's doctoral thesis, ''Light Out of Darkness: the origin of photography in mystery and melancholy'', was a study of the work of pioneer photographers

Nicéphore Niépce Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he use ...

and

William Henry Fox Talbot William Henry Fox Talbot FRS FRSE FRAS (; 11 February 180017 September 1877) was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later ...

Curator

Fereday was the Director of the

Centre for Contemporary Photography The Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), in Fitzroy, Melbourne, Victoria, is a venue for the exhibition of contemporary photo-based arts, providing a context for the enjoyment, education, understanding and appraisal of contemporary practic ...

, Melbourne during the period 1992 to 1995. Exhibitions she has curated include: * 1996: ''Ruins in Reverse'' exhibiting artists Lauren Berkowitz, Adam Boyd, Colin Duncan, Hewson-Walker, Shaun Kirby, Chris Langton, Callum Morton,

Rose Nolan Rose Nolan (born 1959) is an Australian visual artist based in Melbourne with work held in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. She makes work in a variety of material forms: books, small sculptures, photographs, posters, ...

, Deborah Ostrow,

Kathy Temin Kathy Temin (born 1968) is an Australian artist who uses synthetic fur to create sculptural objects and installations. She is represented in a number of public collections in Australia and New Zealand and is a professor and Head of Fine Art at ...

, Chris Ulbrick, Chris White, Constanze Zikos, at RMIT Gallery * 1995: ''Like-ness: 46 photographs from Waverley City Collection'', Centre for Contemporary Photography * 1994: ''Ipso-Photo,'' co-curated with Stuart Koop, artists; Margaret Roberts, Chris Fortescue, Marie Sierra-Hughes, Phillip Watkins, at Centre for Contemporary Photography * 1994: ''Don’t Stop,'' co-curated with Shiralee Saul, gallery shop and mail-order catalogue of works by thirty artists, Linden Gallery * 1993: ''Immortality,'' Rose Farrell & George Parkin, Jeff Gibson, Chris Tabecki,

Polixeni Papapetrou Polixeni Papapetrou (21 November 1960 – 11 April 2018) was an Australian photographer noted for her themed photo series about people's identities. Photo series she has made include Elvis Presley fans, Marilyn Monroe impersonators, drag queens ...

, Heather Fernon, at Centre for Contemporary Photography * 1992: ''After the Fact: Photographs from the Police Forensic Archive'', Victorian Centre for Photography

Exhibitions

Solo

* 2013, to March 24: ''Infinite Image: Susan Fereday'', Centre for Contemporary Photography, 404 George Street, Fitzroy * 2013, to March 9: ''All Seeing,'' Sarah Scout Presents, 1a Crossley St, Melbourne *2008, to July 10: ''Under a Steel Sky,'' West Space *2005, to March 16: ''Susan Fereday : New Work,'' Sutton Gallery, 254 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

Group

* 2014, to May 11: ''Photographic Abstractions'', selected by

David Moore David Moore may refer to: Politics * David E. Moore (1798-1875), American politician in Virginia * David Moore (Australian politician) (1824–1898), politician in Sandridge, Victoria, Australia * David Moore (Manx politician), member of the H ...

, with Andrew Browne,

John Cato John Chester Cato (2 November 1926 – 30 January 2011) was an Australian photographer and teacher. Cato started his career as a commercial photographer and later moved towards fine art photography and education. Cato spent most of his life ...

, Jo Daniell, John Delacour, Peter Elliston, Joyce Evans, Chantel Faust, Anthony Figallo,

George Gittoes George Noel Gittoes, (born 7 December 1949) is an Australian artist, film producer, director and writer. In 1970, he was a founder of the Yellow House Artist Collective in Sydney. After the Yellow House finished, he established himself in Bu ...

John Gollings John Gollings AM (born 1944), is an Australians, Australian Architectural photography, architectural photographer working in the Asia Pacific region. Early life and education John Gollings was born in Melbourne and made his first photographs us ...

, Graeme Hare,

Melinda Harper Melinda Harper (born 1965) is an Australian abstract artist. She works with a variety of media including drawing, collage, photography, screen printing, painted objects and embroideries. Her work is characterised by the use of colours, stripes an ...

, Paul Knight, Peter Lambropoulos, Bruno Leti, Anne MacDonald,

Grant Mudford Grant Mudford (born 1944 in Sydney), is an Australian photographer. Life and work From 1963 to 1964 he studied architecture at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. From 1965 to 1974, he established a commercial photography studio in S ...

, Harry Nankin, Ewa Narkiewicz, John Nixon,

, Jozef Stanislaw Ostoja-Kotkowski,

Robert Owen Robert Owen (; 14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropist and social reformer, and a founder of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement. He strove to improve factory working conditions, promoted e ...

, Wes Placek, Susan Purdy, Scott Redford, Jacky Redgate,

Wolfgang Sievers Wolfgang Georg Sievers, AO (18 September 1913 – 7 August 2007) was an Australian photographer who specialised in architectural and industrial photography. Early life and career Sievers was born in Berlin, Germany. His father was Profes ...

, David Stephenson,

Mark Strizic Mark Strizic (Croatian sp.: Strižić) was a 20th-century German-born Australian photographer, teacher of photography, and artist. Best known for his architectural and industrial photography, he was also a portraitist of significant Australian ...

and Rick Wood. Monash Gallery of Art travelling exhibition, Redland Art Gallery,

Cleveland, Queensland Cleveland is a coastal and central locality in the City of Redland, Queensland, Australia. In the , Cleveland had a population of 14,801 people. Its location makes it a transport hub for islands in Moreton Bay. Geography Cleveland is locat ...

*2011, 14 May to 19 June: ''A Way of Calling'', curated by Melissa Keys, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne *2009: ''Photographer Unknown'' Monash University Museum of Art, curator Kyla McFarlane

Collections

Fereday's work is held in the following public collection: *

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: 5 works (as of June 2018)

References

External links

*
Artist's page at Sarah Scout Gallery

Entry in the Dictionary of Australian Artists
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fereday, Susan Australian women artists Australian photographers Living people 1959 births