Susan Gunn
“In Gunn’s paintings there is a subtle tension between the golden section formalism of their geometry and the unruliness of the free-form cracking. They each balance control and abandon, deliberation and chance. This is not the frivolous feminine but the ferocious one, celebrating healing from trauma and taking up space, unapologetically…majestically. Her visceral, loaded work has the monochromatic discipline of Robert Ryman and the meticulous abstraction of Callum Innes”
Cherry Smyth
In Gunn’s gesso paintings an organic binder is combined earth and mineral pigments, and often combined with natural substances such as chalk, coal, and marble dust. Cracks and fissures surface in the paintings induced by the artist but beyond her control, the fractures break through the canvas as a result of the making, drying and polishing process. The marks appearing in newly made gesso are regarded as defects or flaw’s in the surface and are said to be “entirely undesirable” by art authority Ralph Mayer.
Susan embraces the imperfections and incidental nuances in the paintings which reveal a sculptural physicality and embody a tacit strength and fragility.
Biography
Susan Gunn received international recognition when she won the Sovereign European Painting Prize in 2005/6. Chairman of the judging panel, Sir Peter Blake said,
‘…I think she is a very talented artist, her paintings are incredibly beautiful objects’ *
Gunn studied at Norwich University of the Arts where she graduated with a first class honours degree in Fine Art Painting at Norwich University of the Arts 2004. She has exhibited nationally and internationally for over two decades in a number of solo and group exhibitions at venues including Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, the Royal Academy, Pulse Miami, The National Museum in Gdańsk, the Yale Centre for British Art, The Fine Art Society, and Newcastle Contemporary Art Gallery.
Her work is held in a number of public and private collections around the world.
*06-02-2006 | Roya Nikkhah | The Telegraph
