Susie Harding
My passion is the figure; human, animal or bird with a particular love of skulls. Drawing from life is my regular practice and drawing is my usual starting point for everything I do. I use a variety of mediums including pencil, charcoal, water-based pigments, inks, pastel and oils depending on the piece I’m doing and I love doing battle with the surface I’ve created and the alchemy of moving the mediums around so the work finally comes alive and becomes a finished painting.
I have recently starting working on relatively large pieces of raw canvas and it has been a joy to paint without the usual restricting edges. The larger scale has given me more scope for experiment although I still continue to work on paper and gessoed canvas.
In all of my work it's important to me to bring life to a two-dimensional surface. I want people to feel that energy and engage with it.
Dog, After Goya, 154 x 156 cm, oil on raw canvas
