Suzanne Golden

Suzzane Golden, originally from Merseyside, is a visual storyteller who communicates messages, emotions, narratives and information in a way that reaches viewers at a deep and lasting level. Which is delivered through rich visuals, recorded from the real world or created by visuals and visual thinkers. Since graduating in Fine Art at Leeds University in 1997, she has worked predominantly in the art business and within curatorial roles. She had recently revisited her practice and wanted to use her experiences of working in the art world to work on her practices.

In 1995, at the age of 19, she travelled to the Middle East, like Israel, Egypt and Sinia, followed by Malaysia in 1996. 2 years later, in 1998, she moved back to London, she stayed with her sister for a little while in Lewisham before she got her first job at London transport in Isle of Dogs. Her first art-related job was working for a stabilisation unit London arts, in 1999, at the age of 23.

Eventually moving on to work at Sotheby's, as the Valuation Manager, she managed the volunteer programs. And used to work with the specialist arts teams to build content and saw some big sales. But was not happy to learn that only northerners worked there and based on parent status too. Because of this, she returned to London arts in 2001, later to become the arts council.

She has worked for various departments including:

- Capital (monitoring a small portfolio)

- Grants and Finance Team (supporting financial systems and grant payments)

The main role was for the Visual Arts team:

- Key tasks included setting up grants for the arts (part of a bigger team). Presenting seminars and Q&As for G4As at Artquest, Craft Council and the MR RCA professional dev talks etc.

- Specialised in arts and disability/design and crafts. Worked on projects like Museumaker.

Events:

- Co-curated and project-managed the artworks in the Arts Council London Office Building

- Worked closely with Mili and Richard to provide admin support. An opportunity to gain sector experience outside of the funding structure

- Jerwood Artist Platform Exhibition Assistant (May 2006 - April 2008)

- Curated an exhibition production course (Central Saint Martins) in 2005

      - Produced a magazine called IDEA involving 70 artists, organised a 3-day exhibition in Hackney and presented at the 'Publish and Be Damned' Art Book Fair.

In 2014, Golden moved back to Nottingham. After being employed by BACKLIT, she continued to work at Foyle Foundation part-time, as well as have a full-time job to provide for her 2 children.

Role at BACKLIT, Co-director:

Overview

- Mental Health, Environmental, Digital and EDI

- Professional development - Artist Community

- Pending Collective, Lumina Collective and GEM

- BACKLIT archive

Specific projects

- REMARK

- Mental Health Toolkit

- Art NEST

Golden has said that she enjoys paper cutting and how you can manipulate drawings, digitally or with mixed media. We see this while looking at her works, we see that she has worked with paper cutting frequently.