SUSANNE PORTEOUS
VALLEY OF THE FALLING SUN
These landscapes are seen and experienced as well as felt and imagined.
Places of constant change and instability, of beauty, threat and possible danger.
The abstract holds the narrative that glides from reality to a futuristic dream, with dystopian flavour and a glimmer of hope. The contradictions that populate our current social landscapeare reflected.
Drawings and sketches play an underlying part in the initial construction of the works, experimenting with gesture, and colour scapes, which set the stage for the narrative to germinate, changing and evolving for a time, until settled.
The primary colour palette is a personal internal mix which has been with me for decades from the beginning of my process.
Opening Reception
6—9pm Friday 2 May
Open 2–16 May.
Continuing online until 23 May.
Artist Biography
Susanne Porteous is a Hunter based artist who grew up in Scotland. She attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London receiving the Postgraduate diploma of Fine Art in1986.
She came to Australia in 1993 and stayed, having three children with her first husband and then married the Czech painter Peter Lankas.
She had a studio at Newcastle Community Arts centre for a decade and worked as an Arts Facilitator running a visual arts program for 14 years within a Disability Service Organisation. Susanne now has a business in art mentoring and alsoteaches drawing for Animation and Games design in Screen and Media at Hunter Street TAFE NSW.
She recently travelled to San Francisco and discovered the collection of the Bay Area Figurative painters and the painters of the San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism at San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art. This was instrumental in re-discovering her absolute passion for painting and was pivotal in her return to a studio practice at 'Onwards Gallery’ in Newcastle.
VALLEY OF THE FALLING SUN
Opening Reception
6—9pm Friday 2 May
WEEKENDS: Open 12-4pm.
WEEKDAYS: By appointment only.
Onwards Gallery
6 Torpey Place Hamilton