Susan Betts


Susan 'Susie' Betts is a First Nations artist, illustrator and cultural advisor. She has ancestral connections to Wirangu, Kokata and Mirning country, community and language groups on the far West coast of South Australia.

Career

Betts' artworks created whilst employed at Balarinji Design Studio include the Nalanji Dreaming design covering a Qantas jet in 1995. She developed the Sweet Water design for an oversized Coca-Cola bottle displayed at the 1996 Olympics and now in Atlanta Museum.
She designed a cultural football guernsey for the Adelaide Crows worn during 2016 for the Australian Rules Football Indigenous round at the request of her nephew Eddie Betts.
Betts has undertaken international research through a Churchill Fellowship in 2018 exploring the Seven Sisters constellation and creation stories across Indigenous cultures in Australia and overseas. As a part of this fellowship she was able to visit the Elliston and Streaky Bay areas which had been taboo to her people for many years; this was possible after a ceremony acknowledging the Waterloo Bay massacre and what had been lost.
Betts said of this:
As of 2024, Betts is a Board member of Country Arts SA and part of their First Nations Advisory Committee. She was also a Judge in the 2024 South Australian Literary Awards in the Children's Literature Award section.

Selected works

Children's books

Awards