The Manchester Contemporary 2025
I’m delighted to be exhibitng at The Manchester Contemporary with The Pearls
“I think she is a very talented Artist - her paintings are incredibly beautiful objects”
The Telegraph | February 2006 Feature by Roya Nikkhah
The Manchester Contemporary | Artist Profile
Susan Gunn received international recognition when she won the Sovereign European Art Prize. Sir Peter Blake, chairman of the judges, described her paintings,
“I think she is a very talented Artist - her paintings are incredibly beautiful objects” *
A graduate of Norwich University of the Arts, Gunn has been a practicing artist for over two decades. She has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions at venues including Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, The Fine Art Society, Bo.lee Gallery, HOME Manchester, and the Yale Centre for British Art.
Her paintings are held in collections worldwide. Career highlights include participation in Between Us – the Britain | China Contemporary Art Biennial in Yantai, Time after [()] after Time at The Briggait in Glasgow, Stations of the Cross at the Komechak Art Gallery in Chicago, and Monochromed, curated by Blaize Patrick at The Fine Art Society, London.
Gunn’s painting’s were included in Made In Britain: 82 Painters of the 21st Century at The National Museum in Gdańsk, and she undertook a Masters residency at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Recent exhibitions include ‘X’ at Newcastle Contemporary Art curated by Narbi Price, Vitalistic Fantasies curated by Paula McArthur with Contemporary British Painting, and the Beep Painting Biennial.
During November 2024-June 2025, a significant site specific artwork by Gunn - Ground Evolution was installed at landmark, Factory International. The monumental Tritych was created with earth excavated from the Old Granada Studios site, symbolically linking Manchester’s creative past and future. A poetry and prose reading was comissioned to accompany the piece read by the artist and the writer, Laura Robertson at the opeining of the exhibtion.
Susan is an inaugural member of Contemporary British Painting and Mill Artists Collective, and is delighted to be exhibiting with The Pearls at The Manchester Contemporary 2025.
* The Telegraph | February 2006 | Feature by Roya Nikkhah
Selected | Public | Private Collections
United kingdom
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery (Art UK)
McIntyre Art Collection, East Anglia, UK
Priseman-Seabrook Collection (Art UK & Bloomberg)
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (SCVA), University of East Anglia
Norwich University of the Arts Collection
East Anglian Art Collection, University of Suffolk (Art UK)
Swindon Museum & Art Gallery (Public Collection)
Abbot Hall Art Gallery & Museum (Art UK)
Rugby Museum & Art Gallery (Public Collection)
New Enterprise Centre, University of East Anglia, UK
United States
Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven
Madison Museum of Fine Art, Georgia
Komechak Art Gallery, University of Chicago
Asia
China Academy of Art, Hangzhou
Yantai Art Museum, Shanghai
Sovereign Art Foundation, Hong Kong
Art Preview
Sakura | Divided Ground
Natural earth mineral pigment, wax & gesso on canvas and museum grade aluminium stretcher | 50 x 50 x 4 cm | 2024
The painting’s geometry is defined by a central vertical division that evokes a subtle order disrupted by cracks. The gesso is made using an ancient recipe, composed of ground sedimentary rock bound with gelatine and water. As the surface dries, the canvas contracts, giving rise to spontaneous breaks beyond the artist’s control. Like the Moirai goddess Atropos, whose fierce feminine shears determine the precarious line of fate, these fissures cut through the composition with elemental energy. Overspilling the geometry, the defiant cracks refuse to be contained.
What art historian Ralph Mayer once regarded as ‘highly undesirable’ flaws, Gunn embraces as unique marks. The broken lines are like drawings and are embedded in the surface. The painting becomes a fusion of material, process, and time; and a testament to fragility, persistence, and the poetics of space.
Tickets | The Manchester Contemporary | 21-23 November 2025