The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami presents the South Florida premiere of “Pictures of Susan,” a feature documentary about rising New Zealand-based artist Susan Te Kahurangi King. With the enduring support of her family, King creates expressive, boldly undulating works of color and line that frequently coalesce into appropriated cartoon-like characters, predating Pop art. The film examines the artist’s upbringing and earliest works, her twenty-year dormant period, and the recent resurgence in interest from the art world for her idiosyncratic drawings since resuming in 2008.
At the age of four, Susan Te Kahurangi King (b. 1951, Te Aroha, New Zealand) ceased speaking and began to draw prolifically. She continued to draw well into her thirties, until she abruptly stopped. After a twenty year lapse in drawing, she resumed in 2008, picking up where she had left off. Over the last eight years, King has generated a remarkable output of intense and enigmatic drawings that stretch space and volume in unorthodox ways.
