Susan Lhamo is a Tamborine Mountain-based artist living and working on Wangerriburra Country. Her practice centres on highly colourised abstract paintings that explore the emotional resonance of colour, form, and symbolic mark-making. Using landscape as a metaphor, Lhamo’s intuitive process reveals subconscious narratives, offering glimpses into the psyche through layered compositions.
Educated at Kelvin Grove Teachers College (1973–75) with a Diploma of Art Teaching, she taught in Queensland high schools for seven years and later expanded her skills with a Public Art course at Bremer TAFE in 2004. Lhamo has exhibited widely in group and solo shows, with five solo exhibitions to date. Her work is held in private and corporate collections in Australia and overseas and has been featured by art rental agencies and interior design stylists. Lhamo was a finalist in the 2025 Sulman Prize.
I work with a process of multi-layering. Ambiguity of meaning interests me and I feel my work requires contemplation employing an intuitive kind of understanding. While observing, I hope that viewers will relate to the artworks’ presence, and consider what it triggers or inspires internally.
“Acting as dreamscapes, my paintings blur the lines where the boundaries between inner and outer worlds meet. Through spontaneous, unplanned gestures, I invite the subconscious to emerge, allowing memories, beliefs, and feelings to surface and shape the direction of the work. This way of working is as exhausting as it is vital, leaving me grounded and present when a piece comes to completion.”
Susan Lhamo 