ABOUT

Erica, 2025. Photograph by Nick Beresford-Williams.

I am a practising artist with 30 years of experience working, teaching, and contributing to the sector. Working across the Canberra region, I reside in semi-rural NSW on the traditional lands of Ngambri, Ngunnawal, and Ngunnawal peoples.

My interdisciplinary, practice-led research is nationally and internationally recognised, and spans lens-based imaging, print media, and drawing, as well as experimental digital platforms utilising frontier scientific visualisation software. A recurring theme in my work is the complex relationship humans have with nature and their natural environments, influenced by social, cultural, and technological factors. Through practice-led research, I explore ways to articulate my own experiences and concerns as an artist living in this time of uncertainty, where human activity has had a profound influence on the environment and climate.

Notably

“Walk beside me” 2022, is a recent collaboration between myself and Aunty Deidre Martin, a Walbanga Elder of the Yuin Nation, which was commissioned for Siteworks at Bundanon, NSW, 2022-23.

In 2024, I was the recipient of the Mandy Martin Environmental Art Award; my work 'Metamorphosis' 2016, won the 2018 Waterhouse Natural Science Art prize; In 2017 I was awarded the Capital Arts Patrons Fellowship, and in 2015 my work, 'Virtual Life' 2014 won the Inaugural Paramor Prize: Art + Innovation Casula Powerhouse Art Centre, Liverpool, NSW

Erica in front of the Street Entrance wall she designed for the New Campbelltown Hospital , NSW (detail of wall). Photo: Nat Williams.

Hospital Art Integration

Erica’s work as principal artist on major health infrastructure projects constitutes practice-led research into the role of art within healthcare environments. Through collaborative processes with health professionals, communities, and architects, she investigates how integrated art strategies can shape the cultural identity and affective experience of hospitals. This research generates new knowledge about the relationship between art, wellbeing, and public space, producing both tangible outcomes—artworks and integration frameworks—and broader insights into how creativity, culture, and community engagement can contribute to the design and experience of health infrastructure.

Erica is currently working as a principal artist on several major health infrastructure projects. These include leading art integration for the Eurobodalla Regional Hospital in Moruya (2025–26) with NSW Health, as well as the Endoscopy Levels 23 Integration project at the University of Canberra, in collaboration with ACT Health (2025–26). From 2019 to 2022, Erica was commissioned for “What does a hospital feel like?”, a project initiated by NSW Health and the Campbelltown Arts Centre to develop an art strategy for the Campbelltown Hospital Rebuild, placing community, culture, and creativity at the heart of its Stage Two redevelopment.

At the ANU School of Art & Design

"Erica Seccombe uses X-rays to produces 3D images. Her aim is to show how science and art can be combined." Photo: Jay Cronan, Canberra Times, FEBRUARY 20 2015

As a Senior Lecturer at the ANU School of Art & Design, I currently convene and teach the Foundation observational drawing course, ARTV1020. As an experienced HDR supervisor, she supports and guides PhD and Honours graduates across a wide range of disciplines. Since 2015, I have held many roles, including Head of Foundation Studies, Convener of Graduate Studies Coursework for Visual Arts, Design, and Art History, and Curatorship. I have convened and taught many undergraduate and postgraduate courses in 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 I was nominated for a VC Teaching Award in 2021.

My PhD, GROW: Experiencing Nature in the Fifth Dimension, is a practice-led research investigaing time-resolved (4D) micro-X-ray Computed Tomography through immersive stereoscopic digital projection installations and 3D printing.

In the community

In August 2025, I joined the advisory board of Science Write Now, a free online magazine dedicated to creative writing and art inspired by science. This journal believes in accessibility, connectivity, inspiration and collaboration across disciplines. https://www.sciencewritenow.com/

I have served twice as Chair of Megalo Print Studio & Gallery (2010 - 2014, 2020-2024), having first joined the board in 2007. Traditionally trained in a printmaking and drawing, I am a proud member of Megalo and continue to be passionate about working in the studios, where I have taken up many different roles as an exhibiting artist, a volunteer, a tutor, a staff member, and have been twice an artist in resident, and recently worked to help restructure the organisation for a sustainable future.

2018-2022 I was a member of the ANAT Board of Directors, the Australian Network for Art & Technology. I was a 2010 recipient of the ANAT Synapse Residency and continued my support of ANAT as a Selection Committee Panel Member for the Synapse Residency from 2015 to 2018.