I make richly coloured abstract art capturing the energy and feeling of potent emotional experiences. Each new series begins intuitively, triggered by a blend of internal and external stimuli. This may be as simple as a raging storm inducing vigour and a sense of freedom or a prevailing climate of anxiety such as experienced during the pandemic, calling for brash, garish paintings. Interested in the interdependency of opposites: love and loss, freedom and restraint, sorrow and joy… recent work explores this. We often seek happiness without pausing to appreciate that suffering is its natural companion. Embracing these inextricably linked opposites can bring calm. As Kahil Gibran states; “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked”
As a contemporary painter and printmaker who integrates these processes, I also create assemblages from repurposed fragments of paintings. Process and subject matter become one in my work. An upswell of feeling followed by an impulse to reach for a particular colour and the first mark is made. It’s a physical performance. Mark-making responds to feeling as dance to music. As the work evolves, a conscious dialogue emerges.
I invite you to immerse yourself in colour, its capacity to excite the eye, engage the heart and awaken the soul.
Since her first solo exhibition in Manchester in 1995, Suzanne has exhibited widely throughout the UK. Her solo exhibition, Lucky Dip, was exhibited at HOME, Manchester (2022). Sensing Colour is her most recent solo exhibition this year at the Penwith Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall. Her work has been exhibited nationally at the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal West of England Academy, the Royal Cambrian Academy and Hepworth Print fair. A print of her painting ‘Moment of Balance’ is available from the Whitworth Art Gallery. San Carlo Restaurants is a collector. Her art is in private collections nationally and internationally.
Suzanne has a BA degree In English (York university) and a Foundation in Art & Design (distinction). She has always made art alongside a career as a lecturer and Team Leader in Education, Teaching and Training in the Further Education sector. Since 2012 she has devoted herself full-time to her art practice. She is an associate member of Castlefield Gallery, Manchester and a member of Hotbed Press, Salford. Her large, light filled studio in a former cotton mill, overlooks the Manchester skyline.