Artworks by Suzie Cumming

My art practice is the place where I can process life. It allows me time to be mindful and experimental and ultimately brings me so much happiness.  My paintings reflect the joy I experience when I am in the studio splashing paint around.  I am a lover of bright colour, big and bold expression and finding beauty in the unexpected.  I don’t attempt to recreate a scene or a photo but I intend to paint a feeling of it.  

Every day, I notice and capture the colours and forms around me, from the tiny details in nature, the changing tones in the sky and ocean to old wallpaper peeling off a wall.  I take photos to record these details and document colours, shapes and thoughts in sketch books and on loose sheets of paper to process back in the studio.  I have learnt over time that my art making in the studio is a cycle of gathering, processing and simplification.  To make sense of it all, I will often extract parts of paintings and experiment with different scales, or cut paintings up and collage these into new works.  The end goal is to simplify my thought process into paintings that portray the essence of an idea or theme, through colour relationships and the feelings that this portrays.  

Somebody once said that my work was like bottled up summer days.  I can really connect to this analogy as I visualise the warmth and colour spilling out of the paintings and into the world, spreading some joy.