Susan Miller

Painting a history of memories and emotions

I live in Hastings working in watercolour exploring themes of memory, form and emotion.  Exploring the lusciousness of acrylic in larger works.  Playing with porcelain to create small tactile works. My work explores the fragility and instability of our perceived reality.  By examining the space that exists between memory and experience, I seek to question perception with images that waver between recognition and alienation.

I make no preparatory sketches.  I have no pre conceived ideas.  I work in series, which allows me to create cohesive bodies of work, exploring the human experience.  Recent subjects include response to spiritual space, hopes and dreams, family and relationships. My studio overlooks my garden, providing the tranquility I need to work.   I commence a number of paintings, sometimes the whole series, at the same time, allowing the works to feed off one another over many months.  The act of painting is a dialogue between my intention, my inner voice and the direction the marks lead.  Form is symbolic and represents the original experience.   My practice is a meditative process of painting, repainting, or washing back, echoing the memory and emotions drifting in and out of focus, a history left by traces.  No work is abandoned.  There may be a change of direction or a setting aside, as I reflect on the experience, but ultimately all works are completed, albeit sometimes years later. For the last 30 years I have pushed the boundaries of watercolour on paper, but paper size, and the weight and practicality of transporting large sheets of glass, have created a size limitation that I have felt constrained by. 

More recently I have been working on canvas, favouring watercolour for a more sensitive representation and acrylic for a visceral response to the experience. My work is featured in Liz  Chaderton’s Painting Watercolours on Canvas and also in the centenary James Joyce Ulysses 100 Project featured here: https://www.ulysses100project.com. My work is now available as NFTs on Opensea Susanmillerart.

Please feel free to email me via my contact page on this site.

Education

2014-2017 MA Fine Art, OCA

Selected  Group 

Yoolysses, Electro Studio, St Leonards, 2022

Beyond Blue Hastings Arts Forum, 2021

Pushing Boundaries, Hastings Arts Forum, exhibited and curated  2021

Civic Centre, Herxheim, Germany, 2018

Stains & Traces 4, St Leonards, 2018

The Civic, Barnsley, 2017

Murmurations Gallery, Bexhill, 2017

East Sussex Open, Towner, Eastbourne, 2016

Coastal Current, St Leonards, 2022, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014

Hastings Arts Forum, St Leonards 2022, 2021, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014

Chair Sussex Watercolour Society; Exhibitions Linklater, Lewes, 2021, 2019 & 2018, Oxmarket, Chichester, 2017, Crypt, Seaford, 2016, Foundry, Lewes, 2015, 2014, Hop Gallery, Lewes, 2013, 2012

Adur Art Collective Shoreham-by-Sea, 2016, 2015, 2014

Open Houses, Brighton, 2012

Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour, Mall Gallery, London, 2007, 2009

Royal Watercolour Society, Bankside, London, 2007