Susan Te Kahurangi King
Untitled, b. 1951
oil pastel on paper
10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.32 cm.)
Susan Te Kahurangi King
Untitled, b. 1951
ink on paper
11 x 14 in. (27.94 x 35.56 cm.)
Susan Te Kahurangi King
Untitled, n.d.
crayon on paper
13.25 x 8.25 in. (33.7 x 21 cm.)
Susan Te Kahurangi King
Untitled, c. 1960
crayon on paper
13.25 x 8.25 in. (33.7 x 21 cm.)
Susan Te Kahurangi King
Untitled, c. 1960
crayon on paper
7.50 x 6 in. (19.1 x 15.2 cm.)
New Zealander, contemporary.
Born 1951, Te Aroha, New Zealand.
Susan Te Kahurangi King doesn’t speak with words, but shares much of her world through extraordinary drawings.
Born in New Zealand in 1951, King stopped speaking around age four but drew prolifically through her thirties, when, suddenly, she stopped. In 2008, almost twenty years later, she resumed her work, picking up where she left off. Since then, King has continued her remarkable output of drawings in graphite, pencil, crayon, ink, and pens of various types. Intense, whimsical, wide-ranging, and haunting, her references and subjects dare us to interpret them in any logical way—and we fail. Still, we remain engaged and intrigued by their skillful audaciousness.
King’s family has supported her art making with unwavering faith and affection. One of a dozen children in a tumultuous household, her mother saved and preserved her drawings in trunks and cases. Some were dated and annotated. They have all been organized and catalogued. King's drawings and sketchbooks range from simple images to rich, fully drawn pages alive with complex textures that defy interpretation. Each piece reveals a profoundly active imagination and hints at the depth of King’s output, offering viewers a peek into her worlds and those she has yet to reveal.
Selected Exhibitions
2019, The Doors of Perception, Curated by Javier Téllez in collaboration with the Outsider Art Fair, Frieze New York
2019, Summer Exhibition, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York
2019, Susan Te Kahurangi King: 1958-2018, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago
2018, Vestiges and Verse: Notes From the Newfangled Epic, American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY
2016, Susan Te Kahurangi King, Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
2016, Susan Te Kahurnagi King: Drawings 1975-89, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York
2015, Susan Te Kahurangi King, Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
2015, Interfaces: Outsider Art and the Mainstream, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
2014, Susan Te Kahurangi King: Drawings from Many Worlds, curated by Chris Byrne, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York
2014, Outsider Art Fair New York, Chris Byrne + Marquand Books, New York
2012, Look, Know, Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand
2009, Susan Te Kahurangi King, Callan Park Gallery, University of Sydney, Australia
Selected Collections
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Wallace Arts Trust, Auckland
Selected Bibliography
Schwartz, Sanford, "In Their Own Worlds," New York Review of Books, June 7, 2018
Nadel, Dan, "There Is No Center," Modern Painters, June 2016.
Hirsch, Faye, "Susan Te Kahurangi King," Art in America, March 13, 2015.
Saltz, Jerry, "Seeing Out Loud: The Best Things I Saw at Frieze New York and the Outsider Art Fair," Vulture, May 13, 2014.
Ebony, David, "In Step with the Outsiders: The Outsider Art Fair," Art in America, May 9, 2014.
Rosenberg, Karen, "Unorthodox, Maybe, but Scarcely on the Fringe," New York Times, May 8, 2014.
Gómez, Edward M., "Outsider Art Preview: Blurred Categories and Fairs Big and Small," Hyperallergic, May 3, 2014.
Filmography
Pictures of Susan. Dir. Dan Salmon. Octopus Pictures, 2012.