Susan Christie’s Marewa series is named for a favourite suburb in Napier. Napier was famously rebuilt in Art Deco style following an earthquake in 1931 which almost levelled the inner city and claimed 258 lives. Christies works in glazed ceramics and painted plywood are bold, glamourous Art Deco compositions made in tribute to the jewel of a town that rose following this disaster.

Christie graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts from AUT in 2015. Her paintings and ceramics reconsider Twentieth Century abstraction. She rebels against perceived hierarchies in fine and applied arts and sees no reason to separate art from life. 'My work is often created in a way to balance on a thin line between design and art, decoration and art, function and art." Rather than beginning with a fixed idea, she'll often choose a shape or form and build the work intuitively. Each painting and ceramic object emerges through a combination of improvisation, chance and design. In 2016 Christie started an art and object business called 'formantics'. Her works are held in both local and international collections.