Sue Smalkowski - painter
“Locale proves the overriding force directing my work, my experiences of living on the South Coast, my thoughts, my views of the sea and the land. All these images provide a form of sanctuary and solace. These landscapes celebrate nature; they take us outside ourselves into new realms of imagination and possibility.
This series of paintings evoke different emotions, different settings like latent memories of walks along the seashore, of deep oceans, shallow rock pools and the nearby escarpment. Repeated applications of poured paint (in both my oils and watercolours) directed and spontaneously creating transparent and opaque, often inert layered accumulations, the fusion – suggestive ambiguous imagery. The contrast of rhythmic vertical strokes and looser, irregular brushwork intensifies these oppositions where each stroke becomes a visual feast of subtle inflections. In my work I believe that the landscape comes alive little by little as each layer of surface is discovered – as underpainting is glimpsed between layers of thicker paint, layers tucked beneath transparent glazes, the surface sometimes heavily impastoed or worked with a knife. I access the depths of the landscape as surface, the accumulation of layers through time quite literally by rubbing it away and bringing what is hidden up to meet you.” – Sue Smalkowski in the invitation to 2006 “subtle reflections” exhibition |
   What Remains? (triptych) 2006 oil on canvas 240 x 60 cm
Refraction of Light 2014 oil on linen 122 x 122 cm
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