Susan Abbs

Originally from Singapore, Susan Abbs has been living in England for 18 years. In 2012, she became the first local artist in Residence at Orleans House Gallery. During her residency, she produced a series of mixed media paintings called Parklife. This is based on a very short period of time each year, when the sun is shining and the days are long. We are all happy and all is good and right in the world. We rush out to the parks: we have picnics, we walk the kids and dogs, we cycle, and of course what is summer without endless games of cricket?
The park dominates each work and all human activity is merely suggested and hardly there. In fact in some of the works, you have to look closely to notice people - as if their activities were fleeting moments in time, contrasting with the permanency of the trees.

Art critic Carol Cordrey comments:
“Susan Abbs impresses with her huge compositions that capture the English landscape to perfection. Majestic trees contrast with vast swathes of grass...cool, dark shade combines with hot, gleaming sunshine...strongly textured, tactile bark is juxtaposed with delicate, fluttering leaves and each vast scene is injected with life through a handful of subtly defined, distant, human figures”.