Suzy Platt

Artist's Biography

Suzy Platt is a talented young artist from New Zealand. She has been painting and exhibiting for about 17 years and has developed into one of New Zealand’s most sought after artists, despite only being relatively young.

Born in Dunedin in 1975, Suzy’s family environment was very creative with some of her earliest memories being of her artist father Martin Platt working on his paintings and the “wonderful smell of linseed oil” emanating from his studio.

Other creative influences and encouragement came from her aunt, a stage and TV actress and her grandfather, Peter Platt who was Head of the Music Department at Otago University and then later Head of Music at Sydney University.

With a degree in Art History, Suzy also spent time at Art School but decided to leave so she could intuitively develop her own painting style.

Suzy began to paint when pregnant with her first child and success followed with galleries taking on her works.

Suzy’s works are predominately portraits of haunting and innocent wide-eyed children caught in their inner domestic world. Her works are identifiably unique and often people see and fall in love with the pathos evoked from the paintings, as well as the subject matter.

Suzy’s interest in portraying children and animals in her art stems from growing up on her parent’s farm with household pets, bottle feeding orphan lambs, chasing chickens and watching ducks on ponds.

Now the mother of four children, Suzy paints with a view to her garden from her studio that her husband created from an old wash-house. She draws on her parenting experience for inspiration as well as her own childhood memories.

“A child hides nothing and I think that is what is so beautifully powerful about them. I try to capture the moments of childhood that are at once magical and ordinary. I want in this exhibition to immortalize these ordinary and extraordinary moments of childhood, whether it’s picking a freshly bloomed flower or the first feel of a butterfly … small moments, but also so beautiful and precious, as childhood is!’ If I can put joy into someone’s heart from one of my paintings, like the joy I have in creating them, then I’m happy!” Suzy said.

Suzy’s connection to Australia began with happy summer childhood holidays spent with her grandparents in Sydney.

During these holidays, Suzy developed an appreciation for Australian art and cites the work of eminent Australian painter Charles Blackman as one of her chief inspirations.

Charles Blackman is known for his paintings of children and flowers and in a lovely coincidence Suzy’s inaugural Australian exhibition was held in 2014 at Tiffany Jones
Fine Art Gallery in Buderim where Blackman lived and painted in the 1980’s, deriving inspiration from the rainforest and waterfall near his home.

Suzy has held several successful shows with one exhibition famously selling out in 40 minutes. She has also won several painting awards and has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions across New Zealand and Australia.

Suzy‘s paintings have been sold to investment art groups, international buyers and many private collectors. Her work is shown in galleries in all of New Zealandʼs major cities, in London, with Tiffany Jones Fine Art Consultant in Queensland and galleries in Victoria.