Artist’s Statement

Sue produced her beautiful thin-section photos while working in the geology lab and while she she used smaller sized images for her work, including her Honours thesis, she also had the images printed on A4 photographic paper. Sue's original Australian Mineral Series photos featured twelve images which have been exhibited as large scale (100cm x 76cm) canvases as well as on tile and timber. In this instance Sue's images are presented as 5' x 7' photographic images in glass or perspex blocks.

Sue wrote a description of the rock ‘thin section’ process:
After cutting and roughly trimming with a diamond tipped saw the rock is slowly cut, ground and then polished to a thickness of 0.03mm (30µm). Using resin to hold this incredibly thin slice of rock onto a glass slide the constituent minerals are now ready to be viewed under a polarising microscope. The diagnostic colors produced by projecting various wavelengths of light through the rock sliver, in conjunction with mineral shape and its association with other minerals are used to determine the mineral type. The diagnostic colors and shape of the mineral can also tell the experienced petrologist the approximate chemical composition of the mineral.