Magic in the Everyday

By local artist Sue Blandford

I never go anywhere without a camera, looking for photographs in their own right but mainly for material for paintings; objects that symbolise something for me personally, often unconsciously at first.

Lantern Glasshouse, acrylic on wood

One of the things I am interested in is what happens in the golden 20 minutes in the evening when the light is low and transformative giving glimpses of something other. When objects glow out of dark spaces or as with glasshouses, become beacons filled with mystery and seemingly inner light.

I am interested in ordinary objects that appear somehow magical or different to normal either because they are in an unexpected context or with other things that together seem to tell a story, poetic juxtapositions. A glimpse of an everyday object that takes on another meaning.

My work often contains paradox, combining something peaceful or light with something dark or that gives a sense of unease. Sometimes using a difficult experience or emotion in a painting feels very constructive. Light and dark give balance.

Last summer I completed a series of chair paintings which speak of being alone. Made to seat one, suggestive of a recent but departed presence. The chairs were abandoned in the street, battered and worn but wonderfully patinated with their history, in a transitional context that frame their tired beauty.

The paintings featured are a recent series inspired by photographs taken on my allotment which celebrate the seemingly cold, barren but necessarily dormant earth, darkly framing glowing glasshouses symbolic of the growth and potential to come.

Mirror Boat II

Mirror Boat II has sprung a leak but this enables it to carry bright reflections of the sky from its dark harbour.

The painting that I’m currently working on is called ‘Waiting for the Thaw’. It depicts a fragile white chair glowing in the yellowy light of dormant energy, encased in an icy mauve and blue glasshouse below a deadening slate sky. I endeavour to work with things that seem difficult in the spirit of optimism, but if embraced prove necessary and helpful such as transition and the restorative dormancy of winter.

Sue Blandford has been working as a professional artist exhibiting nationally and internationally since graduating From Norwich School of Art with B.A. hons in fine art in 1991, undertaking numerous painting, sculpture and design commissions including for private collections, Paduk, The Victoria & Albert Museum and Knebworth House restoration. She has undertaken artists residencies, taught arts workshops and reviewed for London Arts Board for dance and theatre drawing on the inspiration of expressive forms such as Butoh a contemporary theatrical Japanese dance style influenced by German expressionism at its conception.
www.sueblandford.com