Mirror Boat Print

The subject matter and it’s context that Sue is attracted to is frequently subconscious. It often exists in a Liminal space. A poetic juxtaposition, something displaced or discarded. It’s otherness revealed through fleeting transformative light, or the nocturnal. The objects that attract her are imbued with their practical uses as well as their evocation. The magic in the mundane that gets passed by. She looks for beauty but often finds it glowing in the dark or uneasy. Actual figures are rare in her paintings, perhaps a silhouette on a tent wall. She prefers to use objects that infer a human presence or absence. She has often felt herself to be occupying an ‘in-between’ place growing up, a mixed race heritage being part of this. Her subject matter reflects the spaces between the city and nature. Small man made objects or structures taking a space and resonating amongst the elemental. The writer and art historian Jennifer Vuglar picks up on her themes by saying ‘There is nowhere settled and stable, the places of possible habitation are transitory, too fragile to be a home. Even the vegetation is of the edgelands. But the paintings remind us that these places are also places of survival, of fragile resistance, of belief. The glass houses wait out winter, nets for the seas to rise, ladders for angels to enter the world. Discarded objects shimmer with past touch; the chairs have been sat on, the door once opened. Here in the forgotten places light is entering the world.’ Since graduating from Norwich School of Art in 1991, Sue has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her sculpture and paintings in private and public collections include; commissions for hospitals, private interiors, workspaces and as part of the Knebworth House restoration. Most recent exhibitions include; ING Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries London and Houghton Hall. Theatrical forms such as Butoh, Haiku poetry and the musical soundscapes she listens to while painting have been amongst her inspirations.