Susan Mabin, BVAD and studying Master of Professional Creative Practice, with an assemblage of found objects

Studying for her Master of Professional Creative Practice at EIT, Susan Mabin is drawing on her experience of working as an artist in a remote settlement in Iceland’s far north.

After completing her Bachelor of Visual Arts and Design at ideaschool in 2014, Susan took up an artist’s residency in the country she first visited in her mid-20s.

“It’s taken me some years to get back there,” she says of an island celebrated for its landscape of glaciers, tundra, lava fields, live volcanoes, geysers and hot springs.

Susan’s 2½ months in “the most isolated town I could find” was the genesis of a body of work based on man-made and natural objects, which she now largely collects from local beaches.

One of her assemblages, titled Random, was among the 32 works shortlisted from 260 entries in this year’s National Contemporary Art Award.