Philosophy
Suze Agnes is an environmental artist and author working with ink, watercolours, botanical colours and words. A wide range of creatures inspire her work, particularly the overlooked and unloved, like insects, fungi and frogs. Her works often engage with the interplay of image and text, including visual narratives, paintings, drawings and poems, and they have been showcased and published in diverse international contexts. Questions about relationships with living beings are central: the ones we already have, and the ones that can come into being through a change of perspective.
An invitation into creaturely worlds
With plants and insects as partners, Suze brings creaturely worlds into being, inviting in their mystery and liveliness. Sharing her sense of wonder and curiosity through the stories of fellow beings, she offers an intimacy for kinship and the barely knowable. We journey to insects dream landscapes, to frogs and insect eggs and ponds, mushrooms in a compost pile, lichens on a branch. Her works spark a tender form of noticing — of how everything is alive, and how the uncertainties of our delicate and interconnected environment can be approached with empathy and a playful eye.
Botanical colours in the garden of forgotten flowers
Plants are key to Suze’s work — they are a meeting ground for insects and colours. Plants are her art materials and engagement with biodiversity in Central Brittany, France. Branches, leaves, flowers, oak galls: they become inks and pigments in her garden laboratory. She grows and forages plants, and occasionally sources them from elsewhere. Her garden hosts well-loved and forgotten flowers, herbs and dye plants. Each plant is carefully chosen to support pollinators and other life forms, humans included.
Plant nursery & insect conservation
To extend the ways of participating in her community, a micro plant nursery was born: Fleur de Brume. The nursery offers certified organic plants, available locally to the public. The plant catalogue is created with the wish to guide people in creating pollinator-friendly gardens, particularly in a European context. If you want to help the insects, please have a look on her plant page.
a playful self-portrait (self as orchestra with creatures)
I am a tumbleweed, blowing around and picking up bits and pieces encountered on my way. I swim in aquatic melodies, sing with insects, grow flowers, and creatures have been pouring out of me for some time now. My work is paper-based, and explores images and words in various forms: visual narratives, paintings and poetry, illustrations, zines, and comics. These have been showcased in diverse places, including zine & comics festivals, galleries, museums, journals, and online platforms - first in New Zealand, then internationally. The central theme in my work is the relationship between humans and nature. I like to venture to the barely imaginable, to where things become clouded, and hold them for a while — give them a spin.
I am interested in the joys, dreams and difficulties of sharing spaces with other creatures. Different knowledges colour my perceptions: folklore, ancient narratives, contemporary ecological knowledges, and sensory experiences fuel the imagination. A mix of curiosity and endless not-knowing leads me to playful views on the place of humans interwoven with all the other creatures.
Nature is not a backdrop to human life. There is a place for laughter and awe amidst the disgust. There is growth with the rot. A spark of imagination through an unexpected encounter. Small creatures are a lot more intelligent, sensitive, and flexible than usually given credit for. Entangled and often strange, we must keep finding arrangements for living together. Mixing play and the serious, I wish to contribute to a broader recognition of creatures in all shapes and sizes, not just for their ecological importance, but also as lively, aware, full of story, and for whom things matter.