Cover Image Collis S, Sunny Miller (2010)
I am interested in the act of mark making. And mildly, no totally obsessed with, producing “honest” marks. When I draw or paint I am constantly attempting to create marks that are alive. Free from laboured, contrived, actions, but loaded with intent.
Outside of the conventional art world these marks are all around. An accidental brushstroke on a fence post. A joiners scribbled note on a wooden structure. The historical blemishes on a kitchen table, or a series of rhythmical marks from the repetitive scuffing of an object on a wall.
Art often presents itself as something unobtainable. But I find this humble connection to the everyday proves that art is a part of life. It’s how we extend and manipulate it that brings it closer or further away from recognisable forms and theories.
Susan Collis takes the act of creating into a bizarre twilight zone. Using very laborious techniques she presents an ordinary paint splattered surface constructed deceptively with precious stones and Mother of Pearl inserts. Or, an old tarpaulin displayed in a gallery, which at first makes you think “Oh here we go again” an artist being clever. Putting rubbish on the wall and no doubt writing some intense manifesto about the impermanence of life or something……But no……She trumps us all by actually constructing the tarp herself out of cartridge paper and detailed biro drawing. And it’s so real and good you do a full 180 and celebrate her crazy drawing skills. Impressed immensely by her trickery.
But it’s not all jovial elbow in the ribs you got me there stuff. She can go deep and sombre. Grinding away at large sheets of paper with graphite, drawing, making impressions on the surface, from derelict haunting buildings. They adorn the gallery walls themselves like the ghosts of those places.
She celebrates the accidental marks, with her sewing machines and Mother of Pearl craftings, and gives them a badge of honour. But she also honours the life behind them. That value is in the everyday task, the repetitive, the mundane. The working class heroes behind these subjects. Her process is inline with this. It’s labour intensive craft, drawing, sewing….
She has thought provoking work. She narrates interesting and necessary stories in a very unique way that cuts the heart of this continued genre of work, that is trying to wake us up, and not see things just as we are disciplined to see them.
Cover Image
Collis, S. (2010) Sunny Miller. [Acid free construction paper, biro inks, photo edited with Hipstamatic] At: https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Susan-Collis/7EF835B4D0235090/Artworks (Accessed 04/04/2024).
Bibliography
SeventeenGallery (2017) Susan Collis – When We Loved you Best Of All. [Photo, edited with Hipstamatic] At: https://www.seventeengallery.com/artists/susan-collis/ (Accessed 04/04/2024).
Sunday 01.12.25