O u t   o f   T h e   D e e p
The County Gallery, County Hall, Maidstone
17 October to 13 November 2001
'It is not difficult to (feel) what cataclysm (Pollock) imagined to be waiting beyond the ragged white edge of the dark centre of The Deep.' (Landau)

Working in response to Jackson Pollock's The Deep, with its sense of despair, the paintings somehow, of their own accord, seemed to echo this by giving out a feeling of vulnerability, particularly female vulnerability, that Susan wasn't consciously intending.  As in all her work, she let the paintings take the lead, and embraced the fact that we are all vulnerable, as it is a part of the human condition.

                           

Pollock's painting has many implications ranging from a wound or a gash to a chasm or a void.  Susan's use of stark red and white paint in the Torn apart series comes from the former whereas the feminine quality of the pinks and delicate layers of white washes in the Ravishing series has a paradoxical gentleness.

Colour has always been central to Susan's work but for a while her paintings had been mainly black with a recurring theme of light emerging from darkness and so Out of The Deep was an extreme contrast to this work;  Susan first thought of making predominantly white paintings for this space while she was actually standing in the gallery.
Thrown, flicked and dripped paint have been her principal means of drawing for some time and they are a chance way of arriving at forms to which Susan, of course, owes a great debt to Pollock.  The exhibition reflects this in making work in homage to The Deep, one of Pollock's last great paintings.
                             
Collaboration

 Piano Recital and Poetry Reading
Christopher Willis gave a piano recital for Out of The Deep playing his own works and music by Nils Schweckendiek, including Soundscape (Chain), interspersed with poetry written and read by Jane Kingshill.

 The Glorious Moment or Beethoven in a Balloon
The foundations for Susan's exhibition grew alongside those of Katie Kingshill's play which was presented by Cyclops Productions in the theatre at County Hall.