Susie Hamilton

Glaring Light

Hamilton's paintings often depict travelling figures (Sami, explorers, riders, Berbers, mountaineers, shoppers) struggling, dashing, trudging through the wilderness of the world. The wilderness may be a natural one or it may be a bleak public space such as hospital, superstore, casino or mall. The settings are frequently overwhelming in the sense that they dwarf or threaten the living creature. They are also characterised by glaring light which exposes and blitzes the figure and sets up a violent contrast between dazzle and darkness. The method and style of painting, as much as the setting, challenge the figure and the figurative. The style hovers on abstraction with the figure and the figurative being threatened with loss of identity and transformation into abstract forms. Figures and objects become mysterious or menacing, replacing the named and known with the unnamed and unknown.

What is it about your studio space that inspires you?

Silence

What sounds, scents and sights do you encounter while in your studio?

Gulls and waterfowl on the canal; fumes of turps; the Shard, Gherkin and buildings in the City of London

What is your favourite material to work with? How has your use of it evolved throughout your practice?

thin acrylic or thick oil paint.

What themes do you pursue?

Mutating and damaged figures. Figures in wilderness.

What advice has had the biggest impact on your career?

Matisse's remark that "You can exaggerate in the direction of truth".

If you could only have one piece of art in your life, what would it be?

Stubb's "Horse Devoured by a Lion"

If you weren´t an artist, what would you be doing?

Chef

What are your favourite places besides your studio?

Home in Mile End, Varanasi and the Isle of Skye

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