Susanne Nørregård Nielsen is a Scottish-based Danish artist. She originally trained as a screen-printer in Copenhagen, before studying printmaking and painting at the Art Academy (P.W.S.S.P.) in Poznan, Poland. After two years she went on to study in the Painting and Printmaking Department at Glasgow School of Art, graduating in 1998. Since 10th January 2000, Susanne has taught in the Painting and Printmaking Department of The Glasgow School of Art.
Nielsen’s art practice makes frequent use of strategies of appropriation. Although her practice is rooted in painting, other media and materials such as photography, plants, textiles and embroideries are often used to make the work.
Through a rigorously research-led practice, Nielsen’s work sets out to challenge dominant art historical interpretations of key art and artists, in particular the three leading twentieth century pioneers of abstraction, Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889-1943), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935).
Nielsen’s central research enquiry illuminates art works central to the early 20th century canon, to provoke new thinking on the impact of artists practice using feminine gendered materiality.
Nielsen’s work has been exhibited in various UK and European galleries and museums including Big Circle Kyiv, Dundee Contemporary Art, Highland Institute of Contemporary Art (HICA), Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews and Charlottenborg, Copenhagen. Her photographic works have been published in ‘Source’, ‘Katalog’, and in Dr. Susan Bright’s book ‘Autofocus: the self-portrait in contemporary photography.’ Other accolades include a fellowship at the Pier Arts Centre in Orkney in 2001 and a one year residency at Stills, Scotland's Centre for Photography in 2007.
In 2018 Nielsen was recipient of an ARP- Research Fellowship from the Stiftung Hans Arp und Sophie Taeuber-Arp e.V. Berlin. The Fellowship provided a period of archive research on Sophie Taueber-Arp’s textile oeuvre.
Nielsen received a publication grant from Stiftung Hans Arp und Sophie Taeuber-Arp e.V. in 2019.
Nielsen’s most recent and current work investigates textiles’ influence on early 20th century visual art, in particular abstract painting with a focus on Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s practice.
