Susan Tooke


Photo credit: Susan Tooke

CARFAC Maritimes President 2009 – 2015
CARFAC National President 2015-2017
Past President from 2017-2019

Focusing on environmental issues, Susan has developed visual symbolism for life forms impacted by the elements and layered through time. While painting is the foundation of her studio work, she is also known for her work in media arts, including sound, video and animation.

The interactive installation Altered Vision / Altered Sound, ArtsPlace, November-December 2023, explored the relationship between abstract paintings and abstracted soundscapes created from urban and rural field recordings.

Tooke’s work was selected as Beacon Projects both individually and with her collaborative team, Motion Activated (Susan Tooke, Lukas Pearse and Véronique  MacKenzie) for Halifax’s Nocturne 2015. Using projection mapping, images, live drawing and dance were projected onto the Halifax Grain Elevators. In 2016, her Beacon collaboration with Lukas Pearse and Daniel O’Neill, Wild at Heart, was projection mapped on City Hall. Once again, her work was featured at Nocturne 2017, with Depths of Sorrow, a multimedia work by Motion Activated

A celebrated illustrator, her artwork for children’s literature has resulted in multiple awards including four Lillian Shepherd Memorial Awards for Excellence in Illustration and ten published books. 

Susan Tooke received the prestigious Established Artist Recognition Award in 2015 in acknowledgement of her artistic contribution to the province of Nova Scotia. 

She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University with further studies in the Master of Media Arts program at the New School in New York City.

Many thanks to our Institutional Associates

Many thanks to our Partners