Susan Nethercote (she/her) was born in Bairnsdale in 1975 and now lives and works in Ballarat on Wadawurrung country. She is a painter, academic researcher, and educator with over a decade of professional practice exhibiting and selling artwork internationally.

Susan received her Bachelor of Arts with Honours from the University of Melbourne in 1996, where she subsequently completed postgraduate coursework and thesis study in Fine Art, lectured, tutored, and worked as a research assistant in the Department of Fine Arts. She was awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award for her MA in 1996. From 2000 to 2015 she established and ran the independent clothing label Manque Design before returning to her fine art practice full time.

Her paintings are held in private collections in Australia, the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, the UK, and the Middle East. She licenses her work to lifestyle, fashion, and decor brands worldwide, and was the 2022/23 winner of the AGES Society Art Prize. Her first solo exhibition Autumnal Dreamscapes at The Old Butcher's Shop Gallery in Ballarat was a sell-out success, and her 2024 solo exhibition An Ornamental Education at the Art Gallery of Ballarat marked a significant turning point — the first public presentation of research that would become the foundation of her Masters.

Susan is currently undertaking a Master of Visual Arts by Research at Federation University, supervised by Associate Professor Carole Wilson and Dr. Anne Beggs Sunter. Her research project, Layers of Lineage, investigates the artistic, cultural, and familial lineages at play in her spiritual connection to nature, using the life and creative work of Louisa Anne Meredith as a reflective springboard. Her practice-based methodology draws on painting, botanical collection and pressing, collage, printmaking, and assemblage — and is deeply informed by her awareness of working as a descendant of settler-colonists on First Nations land.

She documents her experience as an artist-researcher on YouTube, where her vlogs offer an honest and behind-the-scenes look at what it means to navigate the worlds of professional art practice and academic research simultaneously. She also teaches via online classes and workshops, sharing her skills as both a working artist and a researcher.

Susan hosts the Studio Insider Art podcast, which has amassed over 233,000 listens.