THE ARTIST//
The ground paintings reveal a sculptural physicality that embody a tacit strength and fragility.
Gunn explores a historical technique of building layers of gesso, incorporating an organic binder with natural earth and mineral pigments and base substances such as chalk, coal, and marble dust.
Cracks and fissures, typically considered a defect in the gesso surface, are induced in the work that are beyond the artists control.
She describes her art as… " A pre-occupation with the process of provoking accidents during the stages of making the work. Cracks in the works appear during the drying stages and secondary scrapes and nuances are the consequence of the vigour of the rubbing and polishing action. I believe it to be an expression of spirit, vulnerability and survival.
"In Gunn’s paintings there is a subtle tension between the golden section formalism of their geometry and the unruliness of the free-form cracking. They each balance control and abandon, deliberation and chance. This is not the frivolous feminine but the ferocious one, celebrating healing from trauma and taking up space, unapologetically…majestically. Her visceral, loaded work has the monochromatic discipline of Robert Ryman and the meticulous abstraction of Callum Innes"
Curator Cherry Smyth
BIOGRAPHY//
Susan Gunn works from her studio at Unit 4 Islington Mill in Salford, Greater Manchester.
She is an award-winning British abstract painter whose materially rich works investigate memory, surface, time and embodied experience through a highly distinctive process using traditional gesso techniques and natural earth pigments.
Born in Greater Manchester, Gunn studied at Bolton School of Art before completing a BA (Hons) Fine Art | Painting at Norwich University of the Arts.
Gunn has developed a unique visual language recognised for its divided-ground compositions, luminous chromatic intensity and deeply tactile surfaces. Combining pure mineral pigments, organic binders, waxes, layered grounds and gold leaf, her paintings possess physical gravitas and meditative luminosity, existing simultaneously as object, memory and ritual act.
Over the past two decades Gunn has exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions including the Royal Academy of Arts, the Yale Center for British Art, the National Museum in Gdańsk, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Pulse Miami and Newcastle Contemporary Art Gallery.
She held a significant solo exhibition at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery. Selected group exhibitions included Pulse Miami, An Appetite for Risk and the China - Britain Biennial of Contemporary Art at the Yantai Art Museum.
Gunn was awarded the prestigious Sovereign European Art Prize in 2005/06, with Sir Peter Blake describing her paintings as “incredibly beautiful objects.”
Her work is held in important public and private collections worldwide, and she is an inaugural member of Contemporary British Painting.
Recent projects include a major site-specific installation for Factory International, Manchester, created using ground taken from the former Granada TV site prior to redevelopment; a monument to creativity, reinvention and cultural memory connecting past, present and future through material and process.
She was commissioned to create a 22-metre panoramic site-specific painting for the Enterprise Centre, the landmark low-carbon building at the University of East Anglia.