Sue Arrowsmith

Sue Arrowsmith is a British contemporary artist whose practice explores light, gesture, rhythm, and the relationship between abstraction and the natural world. She graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1990 and lives and works in London.Arrowsmith begins her process by photographing trees encountered on walks around her local environment, capturing the images on 35mm slide film. Once developed, the photographs are projected onto the walls of her studio, where they serve as starting points for her paintings. Working with inks and acrylics, she paints directly onto prepared surfaces, often aluminium panels coated with watercolour ground or, more recently, gilded with precious metals.Gold and other metallic surfaces have become an important element of Arrowsmith's practice, allowing her to investigate the shifting effects of light. As illumination changes throughout the day, the reflective surfaces alter the appearance of the compositions, creating works that seem to move and transform with their surroundings.Painting fluidly and at speed, Arrowsmith builds her images through energetic lines, drips, and accumulated marks. Although rooted in photographic observation, the compositions gradually move away from their original source, becoming increasingly abstract through the process of making. As the artist explains, she is interested in exploring “themes of light, gesture and space through the energy and rhythm of mark-making.”Arrowsmith has exhibited widely throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, establishing a distinctive visual language that brings together landscape, abstraction, material experimentation, and the changing qualities of light.