ABOUT
"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
Erica is a practicing artist with 30 years’ experience working, teaching, and contributing to the sector. She is based in the Canberra region, living in semi-rural NSW on Ngambri, Ngunawal and Ngunnawal countries.
Erica’s interdisciplinary arts practice spans traditional lens-based imaging, print media and drawing, to 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.
Notably
“Walk beside me” 2022, is recent a collaboration between Erica and Aunty Deidre Martin, a Walbanga Elder of the Yuin Nation, which was commissioned for Siteworks at Bundanon, NSW, 2022-23.
From 2019 - 2022, Erica was commissioned as a principal artist for the project, ‘What does a hospital feel like?’ to develop an art strategy for the Campbelltown Hospital Rebuild. Initiated by NSW Health and the Campbelltown Arts Centre, it places community, culture, and creativity at the heart of the Stage Two redevelopment of the Campbelltown Hospital.
In 2024, Erica was the recipient of the Mandy Martin Environmental Art Award; her work 'Metamorphosis' 2016, won the 2018 Waterhouse Natural Science Art prize; In 2017 Erica was awarded the Capital Arts Patrons Fellowship, and in 2015 her work, 'Virtual Life' 2014 won the Inaugural Paramor Prize: Art + Innovation Casula Powerhouse Art Centre, Liverpool, NSW
At the ANU School of Art & Design
Erica is a senior lecturer at the ANU School of Art & Design and convenes the observational drawing course, ARTV1020. She is an HDR supervisor and enjoys supporting and guiding her PhD and Honours graduates. She 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 taught many undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including art theory for The Centre for Art History and Art Theory CAHAT.
Erica’s PhD GROW: experiencing Nature in the Fifth Dimension is a practice-led research project investigating time-resolved (4D) micro-X-ray Computed Tomography through immersive stereoscopic digital projection installations and 3D printing.
In the community
Erica has 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, Erica is a proud member of Megalo and continues to be passionate about working in the studios, where she has taken up many different roles as an exhibiting artist, 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 Erica was an ANAT Board of Directors, the Australian Network for Art & Technology. She was a 2010 recipient of the ANAT Synapse Residency, and continued her support of ANAT as a Selection Committee Panel Member for the Synapse Residency 2015-2018.