The Hills are Alive…

Edit 6. Sue Jarvis Artist & Owner of Botanical Garden, Gembrook.

On her property by Cockatoo Creek in Gembrook, surrounded by fern trees and a garden blooming with rare specimens, Sue Jarvis puts paint to canvas. With a career spanning four decades, her immersion in art has yielded an impressive list of accolades: two works held by the Melbourne State Library, founding roles in SECAN and CART, membership in the Melbourne Society of Women Painters & Sculptors, and the 2019 Annie Davison Oliver Award. Sue’s contribution to the arts is immense.

Drawing inspiration from the environment around her and the people within it, Sue’s subjects range from figures to landscapes to still lifes. Everyday stories are reimagined: men at work, the grace of immigrants, the female form, humble crockery, a vase of flowers. Her distinctive underpainting - a twist of colour that anchors each work - sets the temperature for the piece, animating and giving life to every arrangement. Vintage black-and-white photographs often spark her imagination; she honours their stillness while introducing something quietly contemporary through her unusual compositions. It is a unique way of seeing.

Beyond the studio, Sue tends her garden daily. Most recently, she commissioned a dry-stone wall to frame a key part of the landscape. Every day, it seems, she is writing a new chapter in a place she has nurtured for more than forty years. It’s no wonder people choose to marry here; the garden carries a kind of still magic.

Sue’s studio is open by arrangement only.

Please contact her via DM to arrange a viewing of her work @sue.jarvis.artist