Born Lichfield, England, 1941. Lives and works in Cape Town. An internationally recognised artist who frequently exhibits on museum shows around the world. Her work is represented in most South African and some overseas museum collections. Trained as a printmaker at the Art Students League of New York, Williamson also works with installation, constructed objects, photographic images and video, often addressing social issues or aspects of contemporary history.

Williamson also writes and lectures about contemporary South African art, and in 1989, published Resistance Art in South Africa (David Philip Publishers, CT, and St MartinŐs Press, New York) and in 1996, in a co-authorship with Ashraf Jamal, wrote Art in South Africa, the Future Present. She is the founding editor of a website on contemporary art in South Africa, www.artthrob.co.za. This year, a monograph on her work, Sue Williamson: Selected Work was published by the Centre d'Art Contemporain in Brussels to accompany a solo show. She is a contributing editor to Contemporary magazine in London, and was recently invited to be a consulting editor to Nka, New York.

EDUCATION

1983 Advanced Diploma in Fine Art (Printmaking) Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town

AWARDS

1994 Vita Art Now

CURRENT PROJECTS

Commission for South Africa House in London. WELCOME TO THE JET HOTEL - a new video piece to be exhibited on 'Visions of Paradise' in March 2004. Curated by Karin Frei.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

The Last Supper , Gowlett Gallery, Cape Town, 1981
A Few South Africans, Gallery International, Cape Town, 1984
--Market Gallery Johannesburg, 1985
--Museum of Art, Univ. of Oregon, US, 1985
--On the Wall Gallery, Medford, Oregon, 1985
Tributaries, Africana Museum, Johannesburg & Germany, 1985
87 Artists Against Apartheid, Market Gallery, Johannesburg, 1988
Recent Work, Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town, 1990
The Last Supper Revisited, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town, 1993
For Thirty Years Next to His Heart, North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, 1993
Recent Work, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, 1994
--Oliewenhuis Art Museum, Bloemfontein
Truth Games, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, 1998
--Joao Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town, 1998
--Dakawa Art Centre, Grahamstown, 1999
The Last Supper Revisited, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C., 2002
From the Inside, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, 2002
--Joao Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town, 2002
Selected Work, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Brussels, 2003

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Commitment to Vision, Museum of Art, Univ. of Oregon, 1986
Bild/konst I sodra Afrika, Kultuhuset, Stockholm, 1988
Mailart from South Africa: A View from the Inside, Soho 20 Gallery, New York, 1990
Art and the Media, Gertrude Posel Gallery, Johannesburg, 1991
Pictures as History, Grahamstown & Jhb., 1991
Vita Awards Exhibition, Johannesburg Art Gallery, 1991
4th Bienal de la Habana, National Museum, Havana, Cuba, 1991
9th Biennale of Sydney, Gallery of New South Wales, 1992
African in America, Bayona and Santiago, Spain, 1992
The Art of Protest, Benton Gallery, Southampton, NY, 1993
55th Venice Biennale, Fondazione Levi, Venice, 1993
Out of the Ashes, 5th Bienale de la Habana, Fortaleza de la Cabana, Cuba, 1994
Art Home Art, Grahamstown Station, Standard Bank National Arts Festival, 1994
Un art contemporain d'Afrique du Sud, AFAA, Paris, 1994
Trackings, Art First, London, 1994
Steirischer Herbst Festival of Contemporary Art, Kunstlerhaus, Graz, Austria, 1994
Ku(n)stlijn, CAL Foundation, Hoorn, Holland, 1994
Vita Art Now Award Exhibition, Johannesburg Art Gallery, 1995
Objects of Defiance Spaces of Contemplation, Ist Johannesburg Biennale, MuseumAfrica, Johannesburg, 1995
Weltanschauung project, Goethe Institute, Turin, 1995
Panoramas of Passage: Changing Landscapes of South 'Africa, Meridian International Center, Washington, US tour & Gertrude Posel Gallery, Johannesburg, 1995-8
Colours, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 1996
Insight: Four Artists from South Africa, Wright Gallery, New York, 1996
Simunye, Adelson Gallery, New York, 1996
Alternating Currents, 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Electric Workshop, Johannesburg, 1997
District Six Outdoor Sculpture Project, Cape Town, 1997
Thirty Minutes, Robben Island Visitors' Block, Cape Town, 1997
Fotofest, 7th International Festival of Photography, Vine Street Studios, Houston, 1998
Drommer och Mollnar, Kulturhuset, Museum of Fine Art, Stockholm, 1998-9
Artery, Goodman Gallery artists at Jaoa Ferreira Gallery, Cape Town, 1999
Fast Forward.ZA, Van Reekum Museum, Apeldoorn, 1999
Liberated Voices: Contemporary Art from South Africa, Museum for African Art, New York, Texas, California & Arizona, 1999-02
Videobrasil Electronic Art International Festival, Sao Paulo, 2000
Foto Biennale Rotterdam, Las Palmas Building at Rhine Harbour, 2000
Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Openspace, Milan, 2000
The New Republics, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2000
Secure the Future, Exhibition Centre, Durban & Harvard, Boston, 2000
Messages from the Moat, Old Archive Building, The Hague, 2000
World Wide Video Festival, Baby Lounge, Amsterdam, 2000
Joubert Park Project, Johannesburg Art Gallery, 2001
The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1954-1994, unich, Berlin, Chicago, New York, 2001-2
IV Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine, Bamako, 2001-2
PhotoEspana 2001, Dis/locations, Bilbao and O'Porto, 2001-3
Head North: Work from the Permanent Collection of the SANG, Sweden & Scandinavian tour, 2002
International Media Art Festival, Palazzo Postale, Mexico City, 2002
Recontres Video Arts Plastiques, Centre d'Art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie, Normandy, 2002
History/Now, Liljevachs Konsthall, Stockholm, 2002
Africa Apart, New Society for the Visual Arts, Berlin, 2002
Co-existence, Rose Museum, Brandeis University, Boston, 2003
Transferts, Palais de Beaux Arts, Brussels, 2003

COLLECTIONS

In South Africa: South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Johannesburg Art Gallery; Durban Art Gallery; Pretoria Art Museum; Tatham Gallery, Pietermaritzburg; MuseumAfrica, Johannesburg; Gauteng Legislature, Johannesburg; Constitutional Court of South Africa, Johannesburg; Sandton Museum, Gauteng; Brenthurst Library, Johannesburg; The University of Cape Town; The University of the Western Cape; The University of Stellenbosch; The University of the Witwatersrand; Natal Technikon, Durban; Cape Provincial Library; SA Breweries, Cape Town; BHP Billiton, Johannesburg; MTN Art Institute, Johannesburg

Abroad: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C.; Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama; North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks; Wellesley College, Massachusetts; Wifredo Lam Centre, Havana; CAL Foundation, Hoorn, Holland

PUBLICATIONS

Dictionary of South African Sculptors and Painters, Grania Ogilvy, Everard Read, 1989
Africa through the Eyes of Women Artists, Betty La Duke, Africa World Press, 1991
Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century, World of Art Series, Richard J Powell, Thames & Hudson, 1997
Printmaking in a transforming South Africa, Philippa Hobbs & Elizabeth Rankin, David Philip Publishers, Cape Town, 1997
Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to Marketplace, Olu Oguibe & Okwui Enwezor, MIT Press, 1999
Contemporary African Art, Sidney Littlefield, Thames & Hudson, 1999
Anthologie de l'Art Africain du Xxe Siecle, N'Gone Fall & Jean Pivin, Revue Noir, 2001