Susie Hamilton

I paint figures in wilderness—either a natural wilderness or a bleak, urban space such as superstore or shopping mall. My figures are set in challenging places and often blitzed by bursts of glaring light. Additionally they are made more vulnerable by my ‘iconoclastic’ painting method. I enjoy the mutable and unpredictable nature of paint to make (and unmake) images. People in my paintings are frequently assaulted by stains and blots, they dissolve into acrylic fluidity or are turned into nameless shapes, so that both figure and figurative representation are destabilised. Metamorphosis, central to my work and to a new series based on Ovid’s poem, includes metamorphosis into abstraction through which identifiable images are turned into something unnamed, threatening and mysterious.


Susie Hamilton is represented by Paul Stolper, London. Solo exhibitions include ‘On Margate Sands’, Paul Stolper (2018); in atoms, Paul Stolper (2016); Here Comes Everybody, St Paul’s Cathedral, London (2015); Black Sun, Studio Opdal, Flo, Norway (2009); World of Light, Triumph Gallery, Moscow (2008); New Paintings, Galleri Trafo, Oslo (2007). Group shows include Picture Palace, Transition Gallery (2020), Beyond Other Horizons, Palace of Culture, Iasi (2020); Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, London (2020); b+w, Paul Stolper, London (2019); Hospital Rooms, Phoenix Gallery, Exeter (2019); Drawing Biennale, Drawing Room, London (2019, 2017, 2015); Frieze, London (2018); The Art of the Circus, RWA, Bristol (2018); Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, London (2019, 2018); Towards Night, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne (2016); John Moores Painting Prize, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2014, 2004); Jerwood Drawing Prize (2012)

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