Su Baker

In March 2000 Su moved from Sydney, where she worked for 20 years, including at the Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney and took up the position as Head of the School of Art, Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), where she is currently serviing as Director. Su has held academic positions since 1989, including senior management roles at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney and Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne.

Su Baker's current work explores the shift from the critique of representation, prevalent in the latter part of the twentieth century, to one more akin to participation in an event.

Through specific installation strategies in the exhibition of paintings and critical writing the research presents the critical tension between humanist values and associated critical debates on modernism and the discursive field collected under the term 'posthumanisim'.

This research calls for a rethinking of current modes of art criticism in relation to contemporary painting and identified a significant shift from acts of representation to the staging of "painting events".

It is the intention of this research to promote a reinvestment in the silent, visual, libidinal economy of painting with an intellectual gravitas and an underlying seriousness, invoking the "voice" of serious pleasure.