Take a glimpse into Sue’s colourful world

3:20pm Thursday 15th May 2008

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With their dazzling colours and swooping curves, Sue Slack's paintings of North Yorkshire landscapes are unmistakable.

Visit her Lockton home and you get a sense of her inspiration. A little cottage on the green, a path leads to a workshop at the back, which takes your breath away with its amazing view spiralling down into the valley between Lockton and Levisham.

"People always take a long time to look at the view," said Sue. "They have to stand there for a while before they then start to look round at the art."

Sue herself goes for a long walk every morning - along with her two black labs - to soak up the surroundings.

"I love the landscape," she said. "I'm particularly drawn to the shapes in the land and the way the light shows up different rhythms."

When she has found a place she wants to capture, she likes to work in situ. "I go back with a camera and sketch book and often paint there, or if not collect information," she said.

From the outset, she sees amazingly bright colours from the places she paints - whether it's a view of Bransdale, beach huts at Whitby and a stormy day in Hackness.

"People ask how I see the colours and I assure them it's not LSD!" she said. "I see them in the landscape, but then when I get back to the studio and I am trying to capture the sense of the place, I am influenced by the expressionists in the way I let them develop," she explained.

At the same time, Sue's paintings remain true to the places they represent. "I love it when walkers recognise them," she said.

Sue's work has built in reputation, and she has staged several exhibitions recently, including one at the Ryedale Folk Museum Gallery and another at the new Back o' the Shop gallery in Terrington, as well as taking part in North Yorkshire Open Studios, a major showcase for the county's artists.

"Open Studios has benefited me enormously and I've made a lot of friends through it," she said. "People come every year and I have a growing client list of collectors or patrons.

"Doing an exhibition is brilliant because you produce a cohesive body of work," she added. "Otherwise I do a bit, then a bit of part time work teaching or in the local pub, and my time is drawn away from painting."

She is the first to admit that making a living as a full-time artist is not easy. Before taking the plunge, Sue dedicated more than 20 years to teaching, as did her partner, blacksmith artist David Stephenson.

"I'd always been interested in art but did science at school," said Sue. "I was told I could always keep art as a hobby and I'd get a job with science."

Working in schools both in this area and abroad, Sue and David were drawn to the variety and creativity of primary education.

"We both feel very strongly that people are driven by creativity and the need to make things and do things and that is central to a sense of well-being," said David. "We gave it up because we wanted to be full-time artists, but we also felt that creativity was being squeezed out of education."

Both Sue and David keep in contact with education, either doing community art projects working as artists in residence in schools.

"When we go into schools as artists we try to redress the balance," said Sue. "We tell children that there are jobs in art."

So what of the future? "I would like to break into the York market and get my work shown elsewhere," said Sue. "Being self-employed is difficult because it costs three times as much to take a holiday and there is no sick pay. I am ambitious but I also have a sense that things have got to evolve organically."

Full details of artists taking part in the Open Studios event.