My Story
Hi. I’m Suyee, Chinese Australian.
I grew up in an Institute in Beijing from 9 months old, until I was almost 10. Wang Yu Ping was my favourite carer .
Then, in 2002, I was adopted. I didn't really know where I was going. I hadn't even heard of Australia. I came to live in Melbourne with Abbe and Hamish, both Actors and Voiceover Artists.
My parents bought me DVD’s of a Chinese TV series, called ‘Gods of Honour’. It was about old China, in the days of the Dynasties. There were Empresses, Princesses and Concubines, all wearing beautiful robes, and head-dresses. I loved it. I watched it over and over.
Re-living my culture, I believed they could have been my ancestors. I didn’t feel so lonely.
And now I paint from the memory of those stories.
There were lots of early difficulties getting used to
Melbourne and learning a new language. But there were so many good things, good people, good friends. And my new life was all give, give give…I think I was pretty happy about that. This is me at my 11th birthday party.
School was hard. I just didn’t get it. My mum calls them ‘the best struggle years of your life’
My biggest struggle was ‘identity’. Who was I? What happened to my parents? Why don’t I know? Can I ever know?
Anyway I left school after year 10 and went to TAFE for two years. That was pretty good. Got a boyfriend and went partying with friends. Not easy. I’ve always been a bit on the reserved side. Actually I’m a bit of an introvert. Apparently that’s okay for an artist.
I’ve always wanted to create something. When I was 17, I taught myself to sew and started to design and make my own clothes.
I studied Fashion Design and Technology, and ended up working in fashion retail, but never found a career path there. It was pretty boring actually.
I always wanted to do something amazing. My mum found this in one of her notebooks. From the writing, she says I was probably about 11 or 12. It says, "When I grow up I'm be a famous arties (artist)". I was pretty surprised when she found it. But she wasn’t. My mum says she always knew I was creative.
But I was still struggling. When I was a child in China, I just got in line and followed and now I was becoming an adult and expected to step up. But to what?
We went to counselling. I started to see that a lot of my rage and anger was really sadness and hurt. All of a sudden, things about myself, my past and why my life just wasn’t working, started to make more sense.
Then painting just sort of…popped out of me. One Sunday in August 2017 I just wanted to paint, so went to the garage and got out the craft box. There were acrylics and 3 small canvases. I started with that. First flowers, then costumes and head-dresses. Then about two weeks after I began, I painted my first girl.
Something happened when I painted. Inspiration and emotion was rushing through me that had been blocked for my whole life. Even though it was still hard for me to ‘express’ emotion, I realized that I could ‘paint’ it.
When I paint, I feel as though I honour my culture and its beauty and that gives me an identity.
I’m Suyee and I’m happy with that.
