REFLECTS ON HOW FAR MONOTONE HAS COME IN FIVE YEARS!
Those who know Susie Catton from Lamb Island well, will know she is going through a ‘rough trot’ at the present time.
Battling ovarian cancer, Susie will be remembered as the island artist who was the inspiration for the now famous Macleay Island Arts Complex Inc Monotone Exhibition.
So it was with some difficulty that Susie was quite unobtrusive attending the most recent Black and White Monotone.
And like every year for the past five years, this year’s Monotone was another great success.
Almost all the islands’ art community crammed into the very small MIAC temporary premises at the Macleay Island Shopping Village (the home of MIAC for the next 12 months or so whilst the new $2 million art gallery is being built.
Susie came up with Monotone concept those five years ago and ran it very successfully till overtaken by illness and few months ago.
And we know it was a bit of a battle to get to this year’s exhibition Black and White, even though she has passed it on to other reliable hands.
“I am in the middle of chemotherapy treatment at the moment and it does take it out of you.
“But I did want to make it to this year’s event,” Susie told The Friendly Bay Islander.
Needless to say, she was more than impressed with the entries and the winning artwork; another brilliant effort by Russell Island’s Mandy Pearson.
The runner-up went to another well known island artist Lynda Faulkner.
• Susie Catton on her way ‘home’ after the Monotone Black and White exhibition.
• Winner of the 2023 Monotone event, Mandy Pearson (right) with Redlands MP Kim Richards and the winning painting (two dogs)