Shadow Limb

This painting began with the branch - that line came first and quickly. I wasn’t thinking too hard about it at the time, just following an impulse, but once it was down I didn’t want to disturb it. The rest of the painting became a way to hold space around that shape.

The background came together in broad, flat sweeps of colour - not overworked, just enough to create a kind of quiet. I wanted the surface to feel settled, like something you arrive at rather than build up. The upright stems in the distance were drawn at the end, more gestural than botanical - just enough to hint at a shoreline or reeds.

I’ve always been drawn to spare compositions and limited palettes. There’s something in the tension between simplicity and accuracy that keeps me working. I was thinking loosely of Japanese ink drawings when I did the linework - not mimicking the style, but borrowing that kind of clarity.

There’s no particular meaning attached to the branch. I just liked the way it reached and folded, almost like a sentence that doesn’t need finishing.

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Sue Roberts trained at the Cambridge College of Art and Technology, where she received a Diploma in Visual Art before moving to London to work as an illustrator and graphic designer.

After relocating to Sydney with her husband and young family, Sue stepped away from professional practice for a time. When she returned to the studio, it was with a renewed focus and a commitment to further study. She completed diplomas in painting and printmaking at Hornsby TAFE, followed by a Bachelor of Fine Art Sculpture from the National Art School in Sydney.

Working fluidly between painting and sculpture, she has been widely exhibited and is held in private and institutional collections. Her accolades include the Kooindah Waters Acquisitive Sculpture Prize and the CCAT Travel Scholarship. She has been recognised across a range of juried exhibitions, including the UWS Sculpture Exhibition, Sculpture in the Vineyards and the Ewart Art Prize.

Through shifts in geography, disciplines and life stage, Sue has continued to follow a central thread: an enduring fascination with landscape - not just as subject, but as memory, emotion and elemental force.

Much of Sue’s practice is grounded in close observation of the natural world - echoing the contrasting topographies of both hemispheres: her early years in the rolling hills of northern Englands Lake District to the bold and often rugged forms of the Australian bush. Acrylic is her primary medium, though she moves fluidly between materials, allowing each piece to dictate its own process.