Details

First Name	Susan
Last Name	Pearson
Username	susanpearson
Website	http://www.susanpearsonart.co.uk
Region	Shetland
Disciplines	Ceramics, Drawing, Film, Installation, Moving Image, Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture
Themes	Abstract, Environment, Figurative, Identity, Landscape, Portraits, Narratives

Statement

I am a multidisciplinary artist. Experimentation with a variety of materials is an important part of my creative practice. I collect and hoard materials to use in my work. It is like an excavation, digging, finding, cataloguing, and sorting. I think of my work as visual cabinets of curiosity. I like the narratives that are created by juxtapositions of different objects and materials. Layers of past, present, and future merge.

My work explores the links between art, archaeology, and philosophy. I focus on creating ambiguous narratives and questioning the nature of ‘reality’. I am interested in obscure organic forms, like blurred memories, that may represent natural forces, objects in the landscape, or the human figure.

Working in soft sculpture, I shape, manipulate, tear, plait, and wrap cloth and yarn to create cords and organic shapes. I enjoy the bodily feeling of the sculptures, almost part of the human animal, insides, outsides. They are visceral. Contrasting to working with cement, the hard and soft; the masculine and feminine. I enjoy referring to seemingly antithetical forces.

During my dissertation, I researched the artists Paul Klee, Paula Rego, and Leonora Carrington that used their work to understand or reveal the imperceptible forces that surround us. These could be forces like time, space, death, love, or spirituality. I linked these artists to Aldus Huxley’s Doors of Perception, Giles Deleuze’s The Logic of Sensation and Kate Bush song lyrics, unearthing interesting connections between religion, culture, identity, and folklore. These ideas connect to the themes of gods and goddesses of past, present, and future; and the mythology of the three spinning fates. Birth, Life, and Death.

Biography

Education

Currently studying for MA Contemporary Art and Archaeology | University of Highlands and Islands | Orkney

BA (Hons) Fine Art (First) University of the Highlands and Islands | Shetland| 2023

A History of Shetland in one Hundred Sites course | UHI Shetland | March 2023

Creative Writing 1 and Creative Writing 2 | UHI Shetland | August 2009

Visual Studies module on Contemporary Textiles degree | UHI Shetland | 2008

NC Art and Design | UHI Shetland | 2007

HND Social Sciences | Aberdeen College | 2001

Exhibitions

Becoming Islands Solo Exhibition | Mareel, Lerwick, Shetland | March – September 2025

Solo Exhibition | The Mission, Lerwick, Shetland | March 2025 – March 2026

SSA 126th Annual Group Exhibition | Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh | November 2024

Speldiburn Solo Exhibition | Bressay, Shetland | October 2024 – March 2025

Curios Solo Exhibition | Old Haa, Yell, Shetland | April 2024

SSA 125th Annual Group Exhibition | Maclaurin Art Gallery, Ayr | November 2023 – January 2024

Waddered Community Exhibition | Hymhus Shetland | July 2023 – September 2023

Vision 23 Degree Show | UHI Shetland | June 2023

Shetland Collective Group Exhibition | Dunblane | December 2022 – February 2023

Drift Group Exhibition | Summerhall, Edinburgh and online | September 2022 – October 2022

Vision 22 Exhibition | UHI Shetland | June 2022

Lipperin Group Exhibition | Bonhoga, Shetland | March 2022 – April 2022

Reconsider Wool Exhibition | Da Gaddery, Shetland | September 2019 – October 2019

Bonhoga Open Exhibition | Bonhoga, Shetland | September 2019 – November 2019

Wool Week Exhibition Prize winner | Shetland | June 2019

20×20 Group Exhibition | Auld Haa, Shetland | June 2019

Vision 19 Exhibition | UHI Shetland | June 2019

Aairvhous Cafe Solo Exhibition | Whalsay, Shetland | June 2018 – July 2018

Whalsay Heritage and Community Centre commission | June 2018

Bonhoga Open Exhibition | Bonhoga, Shetland | September 2017- November 2017

Bonhoga Touring Exhibition | Shetland | January 2009 – February 2010

Group Exhibition | Da Gaddery, Shetland | December 2008- January 2009

Da Peerie Shop Group Exhibition | Lerwick, Shetland | September – October 1999

Prizes

SSA Award 2024 winner | Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh | November 2024

Creative and Cultural Industries Student of the Year | UHI Shetland | December 2023

Jamieson and Smith Competition Prize winner | August 2021

Wool Week Exhibition Prize winner | Shetland | June 2019

Writing and Articles

Article Busy time for MA Contemporary Art & Archaeology at CHAT! | UHI News online | 2024

Article Art & Archaeology student awarded SSA prize | UHI student stories online | 2024

Poem The Artist published | My Time poetry book | March 2018

Feature article Exposed Roots published | Shetland Life magazine | April 2011

Poem Da Hill published | Bards in the Bog book | October 2009

Poem Walking By published | The New Shetlander magazine | 1998

Misc.

Activate CHAT conference | Plymouth University | Plymouth | November 2024

Gaada Brigði Collaboration | Gaada, Shetland | May 2023

Conducted Whalsay Watercolour Workshops | Whalsay, Shetland | 2011-2019

Conducted Introduction to Drawing workshops | Shetland | 2011-2019

Recycled Art Project | Whalsay school | Shetland | June 2017

Conducted introduction to Drawing Workshops | Shetland | 2016

Whalsay Play Park wall panel commission | Whalsay, Shetland | May 2016

Brae Up Helly Aa ‘Bill Head’ commission | Brae, Shetland | March 2016

Illustrations in Whalsay Waves project | Shetland | August 2004

Key Themes

Islandness

Art & Archaeology

Drawing

Becoming-With

Materiality

Clay

Dialect

FolkLore

Narrative

Transformations

Memory

Personal Statement

Susan is interested in the Power of Making, inspired by Place, Folklore and Identity. She feels a physical and emotional connection to the Materials she uses, like second-hand yarn and locally gathered Clay. This informs what she creates. In her Work there is a merging of Narratives that become hybrid figures of people and place.

Susan Pearson