Celebrating her 70th year, Susan Te Kahurangi King is an ever more-celebrated contemporary artist, exhibited in Aotearoa and as far afield as London, Paris, and New York. The second of 12 siblings, Susan was three years old when she began to withdraw from speaking; by eight years old she was mute. But it wasn’t until many years later that it was discovered that she had autism.
Although told before my arrival that Susan does not speak, read, or use sign language, it’s still strangely disconcerting when the artist enters the studio without the slightest flicker of acknowledgement. Hunched over a hiking pole, Susan strides with great purpose and with laser-like focus rifles through her materials, drawings, and paintings—works all in various stages of completion.
“She has her ritual, she does the rounds, making sure the drawers are shut and the taps lined up in a certain way,” says Susan’s sister, Petita Cole, who manages the artist’s career and takes care of her while she’s in Auckland (her permanent home is Hamilton where she lives with another sister, Wendy). Susan takes a seat and silently begins to paint.
For the past year or so, Susan has been working with fellow artist and master printmaker John Pusateri at his Auckland Print Studio, using an age-old process called lithography that incorporates weighty limestone tablets of the kind you’d imagine the Ten Commandments to be written upon.
Fairly unchanged since its 18th-century inception, lithography—from the Ancient Greek ‘to write on stone’—involves using a limestone tablet (or metal plate) to print artwork (or text) onto paper. Using an oil-based pencil, crayon or ink, the artist sketches directly onto the stone, which is then treated with chemicals and moistened with water before being squeezed through a printing press along with a sheet of cotton paper. The oily image on the stone is inked up, with the negative areas repelled by the water leaving a mirror image of the sketch upon the paper upon which the artist can then work. Once a limited run of prints is complete, the slabs are repurposed, a process that involves manually grinding the previous image from the surface, the use of a giant metal disc, and more chemical treatments. It’s an arduous task, and John jokes that sometimes he can’t keep up with the speed at which Susan works.
What also sets Susan’s approach apart from that of other artists he collaborates with is that she will often incorporate imperfections within the slabs into her drawings. Today she starts a fresh print, but rather than fill the interior pattern, she begins by shading the border with bluey green—a first. John says that Susan’s linework is masterful, while Petita describes her sister as “a conductor, in complete control”. Susan’s face never lifts from the paper for the entire time that we all talk, her attentive sister and collaborator keep a close, protective eye on her and her work. When the artist reaches the left-hand side of her print, her arm is partially obstructed by the small gaggle of paint pots. But rather than move them, or adjust her position, Susan contorts her arm and continues, making way for the pots, until Petita notices and slides them away.
“This experience at the print studio has been so fantastic for Susan, she’s never done anything like it before,” says Petita. “It’s a great opportunity to explore new mediums, meet and interact with others, and to experience a sense of achievement, culminating with the exhibition at the Auckland Art Fair and a wonderful portfolio of lithographic prints.”
Collaborating with Susan, says John, has been a highlight of his career, while his interns have been greatly inspired by witnessing Susan at work. I ask Petita if she believes her sister attempts to speak through her art.
“It’s hard to know. She clearly gains pleasure in expressing herself through art. Whether she conveys meaning in her drawings explicitly or intentionally, we can’t be sure, but it does happen.”
Susan has even been known to draw with a white pencil on white paper, and a black pencil on black, “as if searching for privacy”.
Petita recalls a “magical afternoon” at the studio when Susan was colouring a print with the shades of a sunset. Birdsong was soon replaced by the distant clap of thunder as an electric storm rolled in over the horizon. Petita grabbed her phone and threw open the doors to capture the natural light and sounds of the storm set to Susan’s sunny painting. A red leaf blew in across the painting, “but the thunder, it never came”.
It’s time for me to leave and I thank Susan for letting me visit and allowing me to watch her paint. But of course, she doesn’t look up from her desk; lost in the process of creating her latest masterpiece, and perhaps, who knows, a world all of her own.
