‘Growing up in South Africa, my family and society around us didn't hold art in very high esteem’, reflects Susanne. ‘Neither was there any particularly well-known or international art to see in the local museums, so I had to make do with reproductions in books. I remember the outrage when the Johannesburg Art Museum bought a wax crayon drawing by Picasso! So, you can imagine that when I went to art school there in the 1970s, the fashion was lagging a few decades behind.
‘Despite being old-fashioned, there were some genuine benefits to studying art in this very un-avant-garde atmosphere. I did a four-year full-time degree, and part of this was a comprehensive, academic course in art history, which made me familiar with the art of every epoch, from the ancient Egyptians through to modernism. This chronological view of art is not something you come across much these days, which is a shame, because as a visual artist, the more influences you can be exposed to, the better. The big influences I discovered at this time were Pierre Bonnard,
