Dr Erica Seccombe

Erica is a practicing artist with 30 years’ experience working, teaching and contributing to the sector. Working across the Canberra region, she lives in semi-rural NSW on Ngambri, Ngunnawal and Ngunnawal countries.

A Senior Lecturer at the ANU School of Art & Design, Erica currently convenes and teaches the Foundation observational drawing course ARTV1020. An experienced HDR supervisor, she supports and guides PhD and Honours graduates in a wide range of disciplines.

Since 2015 Erica has undertaken the role of Head of Foundation Studies, Convener of Graduate Studies Coursework for Visual Arts, Design and Art History and Curatorship. Erica has convened and taught many undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including art theory for The Centre for Art History and Art Theory CAHAT. Courses include Australian modernism, Points of View, Cyberculture and Art in the Digital Age, for which she was nominated a VC teaching award in 2021.

Her interdisciplinary practice-led research is nationally and internationally recognised, and she has been a recipient of several awards and prizes for her work, including the 2018 Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize for her work 'Metamorphosis'. Erica's practice spans lens-based imaging, print media and drawing, and experimental digital platforms using frontier scientific visualisation software.

A continuing theme arising in her work is the complex human relationships we have with nature and our natural environments, whether through social, cultural, or technological factors. Erica’s practice articulates ways to position her own experiences and concerns as an artist of living at this time of uncertainty where human activity has had a dominant influence on the environment and climate.

Current HDR Supervision: PhD Art & Social Sciences, thesis by creative work. 

Chair and Primary Supervisor, PhD Candidate thesis by Research, Alexander Robinson, Looking forward to the past: renewed interest in accessing audiovisual archives

Primary Supervisor, PhD Candidate thesis by creative work, Sophia Dacy-Cole Soil Breathes: meditative practice-led embodied interactions with soil through bioacoustics, microscopy, and field sampling  (Sculpture & Spatial Practice)

Associate Supervisor, PhD Candidate thesis by creative work, Chenfie Xiao, Immersion, Agency and Immediacy in Mixed Reality Theatre: Thinking Through Making as a Dramaturg (Photomedia, Media Arts & Design)

Completed HDR Supervision: PhD Art & Social Sciences, thesis by creative work.  

2024       Chair: Kate Baker, Visceral Matter: reduction, abstraction and the evocative void (Studio glass) 

2023       Primary Supervisor, Dr Lauren Kalman, Crafting Bodies And Performing Objects: Politics, Feminism And Subversion Through Performative Practice Through Adornment And Craft. (Object and Jewellery, Sculpture & Spatial Practice)

2023       Chair and Primary Supervisor, Dr Blanche Tilden, Finding value and meaning through a studio practice in jewellery and glass. (Object and Jewellery) 

2021       Chair, Dr Jane Theau, The Site of the Soul: skin, touch and textiles in contemporary art.  (Textiles, Sculpture and Performance)

2020       Associate: Dr Sandra Kelch, Changing Space: A Practice-Led Enquiry into Representations of The Urban.  (Printmaking) 

2019       Primary Supervisor: Dr Melanie Douglas, Surface tension: studio glass and the drawn line. (Studio glass in the expanded field)

2018       Primary Supervisor: Dr Brian Corr, Immersive Experience: Evoking the Elements of Contemplative Space in Japanese Architecture. . (Studio glass in the expanded field)

2018       Primary Supervisor (MPhil) Ms Caroline Huff, Fragmented Continuity: an investigation into autobiographical time. (New Media, Sculpture & Spacial Practice)

PhD (ANU) M.Phil (ANU) Grad.Dip(Vis) (USyd) B.A.(Vis) (Usyd)

• Practice-led Research
• Printmedia & Drawing
• Contemporary Practices in Art, Design & Craft
• Interdisciplinary Practice-Led Research
• Science and Technology