We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
Oil on canvas, 60×60 cms
This work is part of the series I am doing of a rainforest creek close to my home on the Gold Coast. I am interested in the optical intricacies created by ripples and reflections. Where the shadows fall, you can see beneath the surface to what lies beneath. Could this be a metaphor of some kind?
I have been working on a series of paintings of sky and clouds for my current studies. A friend sent me a couple of his photographs as a challenge. 
What began as an attempt at a literal rendering of the photograph gradually morphed into something completely different, through the liberal use of artistic license.
It’s so good to be back into painting after the allarums and excursions of this year. Last year I made numerous visits to Tallebudgera inlet at different times of day as part of research for one of my Visual Art units. It is very beautiful at any time of day, but dawn in particular. This little beach is nestled at the bottom of Burleigh Heads National park and the sea eagles that live there wheel about over your head. When I was looking for a subject to paint for the local art society’s theme – Gold Coast landscape – this scene came to mind.
The rivulet flows
gentle as the touch of silk
yet cuts its channel.
Susan Skuse
January 2014
Always Emptying; Always Full – oil on canvas, 30 x 122 cms
This is a painting of my local creek. I’m going to be doing a series of paintings of this creek in the course of my university studies over the coming year. With this one I created a panorama of photos taken while standing on a rock in the middle of the stream. My aim was to make the viewer feel surrounded by the scene – not just looking at it as though through a window. I painted with very thinned down oil paint on an absorbent canvas surface, trying for the fresh look of transparent watercolour. The title comes from a line in the Tao te Ching – “the universe, like a bellows, is always emptying, always full.” The creek is my little metaphor for the universe.
I see that the year is fast running out. I must get on and post more paintings that are sitting around my studio. I’m pretty sure I’ve made my goal of 100.
susanskuseart 