Sometimes working an artist can feel like an uphill struggle, lots of heavy lifting and many unknowns …..the questions always being, what am I making and why and how can I share my work ?

My studio companion since the pandemic, has been New York based artist and entrepreneur, Victoria J Fry and guests. She founded ‘Visionary Art Collective’ during the pandemic and set up a podcast on Spotify. Her many Spotify interviews have been inspirational, as has her advice which has motivated me at every step. What I really appreciate in her approach is that it is inclusive, pragmatic, inciteful and given freely with generosity of spirit. Her magazine is beautiful and her podcasts keep on coming.

She reminds me of the extraordinary Halla Tomasdottir, whose TED talk I watched after the Iceland crash and volcano in 2010, a long time ago but I am still thinking about her. As a response to the crash, she founded Audur Capital, reframing her approach to business with what she calls a female and sustainability trend. In her TED talk she explains responsible finance and emotional capital, that profit with principles and her business’s impact on society, is now her key decision making tool. Still very relevant and salutary watching,

Having identified some issues I needed to resolve as a creative entrepreneur, I took Victoria’s advice and found myself a coach. In February I started to work with Yorkshire based Hannah Clayton. She really helped me focus on my next steps of my business strategy and opportunities and helped me to define my own success indicators. Now fully in charge of ‘susiesatelier’ with an action plan for the rest of 2024.. Certainly one of the best investments I have ever made !

My website has been refined to integrate all parts of my practice curated cross series. My works really need to be seen as a collection, ideally purchased with a few elements, so pieces talk to each other across the walls.

Watch this space for more on exhbitions, open calls and local collaborations !

Susie

The ‘Cosmic wave’ is a motif I have been using for some time after an inspiring visit to see an exhibition at the British Museum called the “Garden and Cosmos", turns out this was in 2009.

Artwork by the 19th Century artist Bulaki, who was working for the court in Rajasthan, was featured in this show. Big landscapes made of beautiful and mesmerising images of extensive fields of waves with floating characters riding the swells, eddies and breakers drawn onto an expanse of vibrant colour, really captured my attention and I have been drawing these waves ever since.

It turns out these works were linked to yogaic practices at the time and were a way of connecting the body to the divine universe. They reminded me of images of seas and rivers captured in mediaeval manuscripts, but to make these paintings on such a large scale would have required evtn more ime, discipline, precision and focus. Giving these waves a go myself ( on a much smaller scale) simply working with a black felt tip pen, transported me into a work flow meditation of my inner galaxy !

I now use this motif as a analogy of seas, rivers and fluid vectors, featuring in many aspects of my work. You can see for example in ‘Omicron / Volcano’, the black cosmic waves represent lava flows. Watch this space, more waves are on their way with ‘Acid Rain’ and ‘River’….

Just a quick update to say I am going to be at the Heritage Cheese Gallery this weekend with Beth Worth, one of the curators and organisers of our SLWA Spring show, this weekend. If you happen to be any where in the vicinity of London SE21, pop by for a glass and slice of cheese …plus view a lovely array of art works !

Meet the artist - Susie Wright

Saturday 30th March - 17.30 to 19.00

I have been creating what I call ‘automatic drawings‘ for some time, they came up in my show in 2021 with my digital curtain and fabric designs and are now taking on another path.

Starting out with random dots or holes, I join them up in an unplanned way, this is what I call the ‘automatic’ or the free fall bit. What is interesting to me in these drawings is they look like they make sense in the end, probably revealing my conscious mind is, after all, in control of the process.

The idea is that everything is connected in some way, however controlled or not, says to me that everything and everyone is part of an ecosystem of some kind.

This automatic drawing process made it to the surface of fabric in my embroidery pieces shown last year in my Collectors’ View. Elements that are like the junctions were added on, I made random dots in the form of sequins, fabric dots and confetti people, thrown down to see where they landed, then sewn in. They were stitched on to a linen/silk fabric surface taken from a roll I found many years ago at a fabulous recycling centre in South London, called Chris Carey Collections. Some of these drawings are already on sale via my onine gallery Balthasart.

I am now working this further in to three dimensions. With the thread, I am creating a tie to round paper cut outs so that they become anchored and I can build a sculptural surface. This links with my installations, bringing this format to the wall. The paper element structures can also be added to with more partly sliced pieces, stuck together by the tension created between the papers.

This development is giving me a chance to experiment in working from flatness to three dimensional structures in a finite space and so simple to display !

My first three-dimensional ecosystem – ‘Vibrant’ will be on display in the first-floor gallery at the Cheese shop, Dulwich, London for the next two months, alongside another first, my collaboration with South London Women Artists.

I am delighted to announce I have been invited to participate in an exhibition of illuminating art work next weekend in Whitley Bay, on the coast near Newcastle, UK, Saturday 10th February 2024 - 17.00 - 21.00.

My ‘luminetti’ people confetti will be glowing in hidden nooks and crannies inside St Paul’s Church one evening alongside a host of other illuminating art works in the church and grounds. This free event organised by Whitley Bay Fiesta team and members of WTFCollective, hosts many local artists in what will be a really fun and inspiring night out.

If you are anywhere in the region, we invite you to fire up your lanterns and join in with a celebration of light in this dark winter month !

Susie

Happy New Year !

My main news for 2024 is I have confirmed dates for my solo show at Schillerstrasse 78 in Bremerhaven are now confirmed.

Monday 20th May - Tuesday 9th July.

The gallery will be open week days from 12.30 until 17.00

My goal is to bring some of my themes together in a kind of mini-retrospective alongside new work, I am having a go at unpacking some of my visual imagery and motifs to explain them a small publication. Already very excited to see how this will work out !

I will be also posting the work on instagram @susiesatelier and updating my website, keeping you in the loop as the show goes on and, of course, making sure you don’t miss out if you are not able to make it.

Susie

Here are my plans for 2024. My first solo show in Germany simply entitled ‘susiesatelier’ will be in March and April in Bremerhaven, on Germany’s North Sea coast in a ‘Free Gallery’ on the lesser known, but in my opinion, the coolest patch of the city on Schüller Strasse. This is an extraordinary place with lots to explore, relatively cheap to visit and to stay in. For UK visitors, Bremen is the nearest airport from Stansted. The show will feature a new installation piece called ‘Acid rain’.

The WTF Collective has a ‘pop up’ planned for London over one weekend in September 2024. If you don’t follow us already, we are posting towards this show and give out all the details of when to visit on Instagram @wtfcollective2020

In the meantime, for a flavour of what’s to come, I have posted my ‘Flow ‘ series in the website gallery under the ‘mixed media’ section and a poem ‘Thames’ which is about the pandemic, under ‘writing’.

I continue to exhibit every week on Instagram @susiesatelier please follow me there.

Wishing you a peaceful and celebratory winter season.

It seemed to be the narrative in the 1980s, when I was studying art, that painting was dead.  The trajectory after abstract expressionism was into minimalism and performance. As the multiple facets of post modernism manifested, the kind of painters who survived and seemed to be getting the hot press were artists like Peter Doig, Antoni Tapies and Julian Schnabel.  The gallery system perpetuating the Renaissance idea of isolated artist genius. At the time, I didn’t really get their narratives, even though Tapies was one of my top favourites. There were other painters not so seen, with lots to say, who were just getting on with it, like Lubaina Himid, Marlene Dumas and Sonja Boyce, to name just a few. It is from these women that I have been learning how culture is made and who can make it.

In the 80s, I was sent one summer from school to do an ILEA funded residential landscape painting course, led by Camberwell School of Art artist and lecturer, Sargy Mann. I met and worked with all these other arty young people from round London, seriously much cooler than I was ! Sargy valued and talked about everyone’s work, encouraging us all to wield the turps and get dug in with spatulas, brushes and hands. The biggest bit of advice he gave was that the colours in nature could never be copied into painting, photography or any other two dimensional medium. So all two dimensional work is intrinsically an abstraction of the world. This meant that you could not be a slave to nature, because you would never win. Little did we know that soon after this summer school, Sargy would loose his sight. Perhaps it was his experience as a jazz musician, that meant he still continued to paint beautiful work for the next thirty years, using his own improvised system. Sargy, you were an amazing talent, thank you.

Why has painting survived into the 21st Century ? still finding its place among the array of all those other astonishing art mediums ?  My answer is it that is just a kind of magic. Between letting the medium go and then reeling it back in, it is a space in which problems are solved and image making refined. If I am not happy with it, I can easily change it, not so easily said for many other things in our world. The tactile event of laying down a colour and the science in which colour augments depth is a major fascination. But, being thoughtful with the surface, so the control of the eye is totally captivated, is only the start.

As an artist I feel strongly that I have duty to serve, to share my observations about our world and make this as alluring to the viewer as possible. Exhibiting, I discover, is an essential part of the performance, because when the work is shown, control is relinquished and the object gathers its own momentum in building connections with and between audiences.

Artoluso gallery presents paintings from my series ‘Atmosphere’ and ‘Earth Day’ alongside the work of Sanders Nicholson.

Artoluso
8 Church Street
TD15 1DX
Berwick upon Tweed, UK

Open Thursday to Monday
October 2023 to February 2024.

https://www.artoluso.co.uk/

I have been having a very enjoyable few weeks working on my latest painting collection. Inspired by walks through old allotments in the former East Germany, I have been looking back at my photos and decided that this moment of ‘in between’ needed a voice. It seems it is not only in Germany where old allotments have been neglected over years and are being transformed into housing plots, but this story has a particular identity.
Germany is a country which treasures its clubs or ‘veriens’, they come with suitably fitting committees and roles so everything is properly organised from Sports-veriens to Art-vereins. The Gartenveriens are often visible if you are taking a train somewhere, residing in the sidings but featuring large in their leaseholder’s world. Some of the old Gartenveriens as with allotments in England, are still being groomed and nurtured with groups of tenacious gardeners hanging on to their domain and fighting for their community. Members of a dwindling club, here is an endangered species it seems, the time-consuming act of growing your own veg is not so popular or viable in the 21st Century.

Picking my way around old alleyways and plots of neglected Gartenveriens, I have felt the echo of voices, the warm earth and smell of ripening apples speaking of communities coming together, children playing and running wild, people trading plants and seeds, sharing coffee and cake in their own personal pavilions and even sleeping over night there in the summer months. In the communist days you could build a single story shed on your plot, limited to 25 square metres. The style and construction, left to the owners imagination…..as a result, these gardens have an individual stamp, with some sheds still standing. Through the neglect and wilderness, each plot is still heralded by a different metal gate, personally designed and many hand forged.

On return journeys to these alotments, I have witnessed those gates disappearing - picked off their hinges and sold on, the sheds getting vandalised while the brambles crowded in.

This summer I find the fences, sheds, hedgerows and brambles have been entirely levelled with only random weeds surviving amongst the competing property developer notices staked into the ground. I am glad I got the creativity of these Gartenveriens on camera, where cultivation gave way to nature, this is my accolade to a moment ‘in between’.

You may notice the prevalence of the circle in my work. I found it in my ‘Swalkeling’ collection, used it to frame the views in the series ‘Newsblitz’ and it broke out in ‘Omicron / Volcano’ to a full-blown installation. I think of the circle as the sign of human existence, this is the oldest geometric sign known before Euclid, that we can attribute to the hand of the human race. Obviously, the wheel and many technologies still rely on our capacity to draw this perfect thing with a circumference of 2πR. At the same time, as I have explored in my ‘Earth Day’ paintings, the sphere also immediately reminds us of the earth and the solar system, especially the moon. I notice in the recent Haywood Gallery, London ‘Dear Earth’ show, the repeated use of the circle and the sphere to refer to our planet, it seems this motif is still a part of common parlance. I think my former years of researching Mediaeval iconography (yes - it’s true) have percolated through to my practice. Mediaeval imagery found in manuscripts and made public on religious buildings, in particular schematically arranged on doorway entrances, represented the link between the universe and the cycles of the Earth’s seasons, connecting the church to daily agrarian routines. Images of hickling and threshing connected seasonal work with the cosmos. An all-in-one micro to macro infographic using ‘roundels’. In those days to walk into a sacred space, was to have an immersive experience of diving into a portal which explained your existence. The medieval ideas are alluringly explored by Jack Hartnell in his ‘Medieval Bodies’ an amazing read, the completely different concept of the body, time and space in this era is mind blowing. With the prevalence of visual culture today, this kind of study becomes totally relevant. I believe there is a similar graphic fight for power, coercion and control through digital media, a kind of neo – medievalism, complete with our own apocalyptic narrative. You got it first from me. Now less of the heavy stuff….I made my installation ‘Omicron / Volcano’ with a surplus of ice cream tub lids and have been searching but failed to find a supplier of more lids ever since. My ‘Winter blossom’ installation consisted of hand cut circles, which all took extra time. The good news is that I have now a new studio assistant in the form of an enormous round hole puncher ! It has already been put to work, cutting waste cardboard in preparation for scaling-up to my next installation. This simple mechanical genius is giving me a lot of cosmic power !

It is a great privilege to be allowed to curate an exhibition in a domestic space. I have just completed an installation of my recent series ‘Atmosphere’, now available for sale online at www.Balthasart.com. I was really excited to see the work in the space generating its own life and proliferating its meaning. The placing of images brought an entirely different dimension within three-dimensions, the play on inside outside enhancing my idea of vistas being encased by architectural space.

To be able to see my work as a collection in an entirely different context, has shown me how versatile my artwork can be, what happens when you start to live with it and how a beautiful home can bring extra magic to the experience.

My experimental mobile ‘Winter Blossom’ brought another element to the whole, caressed by draughts and tipping out different viewpoints, gently swanning round the middle of the space with the air flow, it was very hard to record this immersion photographically…..but this is a YES ! for making more flat-packed mobile installations.

I have been thinking about making this image for some time after seeing the Polish Pavilion last year in Venice. Małgorzata Mirga-Tas is a phenomenal Romany / Polish artist who, with her team, totally bedecked the Polish Pavilion with sewn wall-hangings describing Romany history and life, a grand scale freeze in textile. One image she created was of chickens scratching at cards, this one resonated, so I have for you here my own version with crows and my ‘talking deck’ cards - Truth / Fire / Identity. They are being pecked or shuffled at, like a discarded game of chance or opportunity.

Serendipity, as a theme is most obviously seen in my ‘swalkeling’ work but it also features in many other aspects of working as an artist, including how I find my next opportunity to exhibit. Having been supported by professional and local galleries in the UK, followed up and been successful where people have given me personal advice, I now have a goal of working like this in parallel here in Germany.

More on finding objects (or crumbs) on the ground and exhibiting in Germany coming soon.

In admiring the blooms this spring and as we become immersed in colour again, I have been in the studio thinking about the impact of climate change on the flowering calender.

In the altelier, I have been listening to Peter Frankopan who tells the history of the transformation of earth and the paradigms that human presence have created as far back as archaeological evidence can reach. ‘The Earth Transformed – an untold history’ is a bit of a marathon book covering 4.5 billion years.

The question comes - how is nature adapting with earlier flowering cycles and how will it synchronise with the lives of flies and insects that are part of this ecosystem ? how can or will the disjuncture between the two be bridged ? So, I have begun work on ‘Winter Blossom’ in which I try to imagine the presence of blossoms out of chime with the seasons. There are themes of melted ice, ice crystals and the pink of the cherry blossom season so beautifully celebrated in Japan.

I started with modular elements and have now begun to construct and it’s all looking a bit 1980’s Memphis. I AM a big fan of Nathalie Du Pasquier….. Its another installation – more photos coming soon.

Dear Reader,

It gives me great pleasure to be writing to you with my news today. I see both writing and my newsletter as part of my art practice, they are the point at which I get my thoughts together and keep my focus going. They remind me who I am working for and, by the way, I really enjoy getting your feedback! This, coupled with my website, where being able to curate and exhibit on my own terms, keeping my work accessible, is something made amazingly possible in this digital age. I like the fact that this part of my creative output and our exchanges are dematerialised.

The letter as a material object, written on paper and sent by envelope in the post seems such a very rare thing nowadays. From the excitement of something arriving through the letter box, to holding, reading and re-reading it, this pleasure of anticipation is now unusual, something from the times of those industrial days….an object, laboured over and stained by the writer,  battered by the weather, delivered by steam train and a person in uniform.

The length of a letter is such a pint-sized thing, probably the only rule is that it is not too long. So at this point I am going to pen off.

Hope you are enjoying the spring skies and May blossoms !

Susie

I’ve been thinking a lot about series and collections and how they manifest in my work. I go through these phases of producing work on a theme, exploring one kind of enquiry and then take a break or change tack. I am now expecting this and work my time accordingly. While my subject remains the same the work is project based, a series which, after a while, I know I can’t pursue any more and they are finished.

Here is where I’ve got to - Collective Memory - a series of 14 digital prints and 23 wall paper designs…think these will re-emerge some time… Human Trace - 6 big paintings, La Palma - 32 collages, Omicron-Volcano - 500 pieces on thread ! The Fairy Tale Forest - a publication of 10 Fairy Tales, I could write one more but think that was it, respect for any novelists out there ! The Talking Deck – pack of 24 cards, game, set and match.……Swalkeling so far with 91 pieces and growing.

I do not know if this is good or bad, perhaps I am going through a phase of phases ….!!!!! Or ….assembling methods of work so I can access any in the future ? In any case, I think I haven’t got much choice, this seems a natural way for me to proceed and I don’t really want to limit the direction of travel.

I have just subscribed to a gallery that can represent me. Balthasart hosts emerging artists, presenting their work in series. Balthasart, is an online gallery with networks across Europe, based in Paris. See the link in my header for more.

One strand of my practice takes an idea similar to swimming or snorkelling round a coral reef, diving down to take a closer look at something on the sea bed that has attracted my attention. It is a growing collection of chance encounters with small objects, some of which I have no idea what they are, which I have found when walking about in the street. I call this on location activity ‘Swalkeling’, a combination of walking and snorkeling. For the moment this activity is on foot and on dry land, the work has an eye to the future when our cities may get submerged one day, these small finds a residue of past lives.

I have found lots of unidentifiable plastic objects that I am still wondering about and some very recognisable things. On the top of my list a ‘fire’ tarot card found outside Lambeth Palace in London, the day Parliament was pro-rogued. This discovery made me think about chance, fortune and destiny and as a result, I designed my own non-Tarot card collection ‘The Talking Deck’ using some of my finds. This is a card collection that will not predict your future but may help you to think about the present. The full set can be found via the link below.

On occasion, I put my cards back on the street, as well as less resilient artifacts including my flame and people confetti, jarring the authenticity of the collection. ‘Swalkeling’ includes phrases picked up while travelling….I am sure you, like me, have overheard some classic one liners. I have noted mine down as another kind of find. See quote bubble above, this is one of my favourites !

It’s great to be back in Hannover and back in the studio again…..
I have been reflecting on the diverse strands of my practice and will be using the next few news slots to explore this further with you. The small landscapes that started originally as ‘Newsblitz’ images in my ‘Collective Memory’ show are still important to me. I have taken the format and surface up to another level, moving from recycled card to card mounted linen. As acrylic paint is made from acrylic polymer, I am using it sparingly, repurposing any excess paint to start up the next paintings. I am keeping my eyes peeled for an alternative with better credentials, but for the moment, it is such a forgiving medium, I’m sticking with it. The linen weave is visible, so the surface helps to create texture and unexpected results.
This is my contemporary twist on the sublime, putting on record in an unscientific way, our waste of precious resources in gas leaks and explosions. Inspired by JMW Turner’s ‘Fighting Temerare’ in which a steam powered tug belches out polluted smoke, docking the age of sail, and Californian artist Jessie Homer French. I discovered French at the Venice Biennale last year, her burning landscapes got me. They say her ‘works often involve imagery of stillness, estrangement, death, decay, and disaster.’ You can see why that has struck a chord !
The first of this new series was the image of Portovaya exhibited in Newcastle last year, I now have at least eight more to add and counting…..unfortunately. While I am really enjoying the colours and atmosphere in painting these little bombshells, at the same time, I am gutted to be witnessing such spectacular loss.
I have uploaded my latest paintings in the ‘in time’ section of my gallery.

Hopefully you’ll get a chance to see them for real sometime soon.

There’s a lot to share this new year as the Christmas break has given me time to absorb the two shows in 2022 and sift through some powerful memories.

Who would have thought that Newcastle in November and the Ouseburn valley would be gastronomic destination? With WTFCollective ‘Faultlines’ at BottleWorks, we were equally placed between ‘the Ship Inn’, a dog friendly boozer serving up an extraordinary vegan food and the local coffee shop, which ended up memorising our orders and directly delivering us delicious, toasted sandwich lunches.

Seeing my work, at last, alongside fellow artists Wendy Helps and Alizon Bennet was the beginning of the excitement which escalated as visitors, known and unknown, popped by. I felt an instant connection with this community and was also blown away to meet so many supporters who had made an extra effort to make it to our show. As the exhaustion levels rose, so did the high that it feels to exhibit and to realise a plan two years in the making. We got amazing feedback ! See our Instagram page @wtfcollective 2020.

My ‘people confetti’ took up quiet residence in the show and migrated through the gallery space, turning up under the wings of Alizon’s ‘Queen of my own Parade’ and at the foot of ‘Omicron Volcano’. This diaspora found homes within other collections in wallets and pockets, travelling back to Whitley Bay and as far out as across the Atlantic to America. This crowd will return in 2024 !

London in December and the White Box Gallery, so simple and effective with owners Francis and Graham’s hanging system. I really enjoyed just being there, with the Fairy Tale Forest model and Christmas lights in the window and being perched on the edge of the heath looking out at the weather. The show took place during a total white out on Blackheath and blizzard conditions.….inspite of this and the suspension of trains to Blackheath one weekend, I was spoilt with visitors, people just walking by and groups of much-loved family and friends coming to look, listen and hang out.

I have now got many many leads to follow and will let you know in my news column what comes of them in 2023.

‘The Fairy Tale Forest’

My second London solo is open for three weekends 3rd - 18th December, 11.00-18.00.

@ The White Box Gallery, 5 Hare and Billet Road, Blackheath, SE3 0RB

All visitors welcome.