Sue Douglas (2)
oil on canvas
213.5cm x 81cm
Title Triptych
Through painting people, I try to tell stories about communities, families, and circumstances.
Through painting, I show people in their daily lives and local environments but also question with ‘what ifs’. I like to create a visual door for people to share in the joy and challenges of humanity, nature and news. Whether this is through portrait painting where I am fascinated by faces and the lives that have created them. Or in my figurative drawing and painting celebrating the beauty of bodies and ethnicity. By looking closely at the work of other artists, I renew my soul, refresh my vision, and lodge ideas in my mind-bank to draw on as I need them.
Now in my mid 80s, having had a lifetime of bringing up eleven children, my hope is that I have helped them grow into happy capable adults. My Re-Place triptych presents my birth children in their preferred worlds to pass to them my respect and love, to tell them of my pride in them. They are my replacement when I die as part of our ongoing family continuum.
After years of teaching design in different contexts and a lifetime of observing, when I have focussed on colour, layout, and design solutions, this has translated into subliminal skills for selecting colour and layout. These underpin my practice as typically revealed in the Tate Modern Café Imagined (see painting below) with its history, humour, colour, and use of distance.
@ssuedouglas39
“OFDAD and OFCAD have made me into a confident figurative, realist, and imaginative artist who believes that she can have value as a painter after a lifetime avoiding communicating as an artist.”