Susan Durkin – Artist and Teacher

Susan Durkin

Freud disliked the 'tyranny of memory' but for me that is the source or the starting point. There is frequent repetition of certain
marks, several layers of these, working from blurred undefined colour fields to smaller, more insistent marks. Everything I paint
has been part of my experience of the world. Sights, sounds, smells all filed away for future use. Memory is unreliable,
imagination necessary to enable the dialogue that exists between what is seen inside and outside.

I live and work in the Cotswolds in an area surrounded by hills - I am immersed in this space. Walking is an activity which provides
a wealth of material to work from. The same walk often repeated but always revealing something new.

I like to work in series on the same image many times over, allowing each separate piece of work to evolve in its own way, one layer
informing the next, each mark directing the next.