Sue Syme

Well known nationally for her apparently gentle, floating representations of people suspended in a landscape of her invention and experience. As she has continued painting, the characters in her frames seem to become more interior – socialising less with each other than with themselves and their own existence.

Sue’s dark and glowing palette shows the influence of the surrounding colours of the West Coast landscape. She uses colours of flesh, shell and bone, earth and ocean and the limited grey greens of the New Zealand bush.

Sue’s style works equally well in watercolour or oil. In the latter, her glazes remain clear, and give an effect reminiscent of early renaissance religious paintings.