Sue Read
Biography
Sue Read was born in Slough in 1941 and was educated in High Wycombe and at the West of England Schools of Art. She has been a professional painter since 1980. She has exhibited in private galleries in the UK and abroad, as well as at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions, Royal Watercolour Society, Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, Discerning Eye and New English Art Club. She has received the Llewelyn Alexander Gallery Award and Evening Standard Award at the Mall Galleries in London. Her work has also appeared in art magazines and two watercolour instructional books by Angela Gair.
Artist Statement
Sue Read’s still life paintings are usually small in scale, allowing her to work with very tiny brushes and fairly dry paint. She uses pure watercolour, building up colours and tones in transparent layers while working in natural light. Her subjects are objects whose translucency, transparency or lustre particularly suit the qualities of traditional watercolour, including porcelain bowls, lustreware jugs, mother-of-pearl shells, little white eggs, enamelware and glass. She sometimes adds a tiny bottle of flowers.
Read is interested in conveying the shapes and surfaces of the objects she sees, allowing the delicacy of the medium to reflect their qualities. Her paintings are carefully observed and quietly constructed through layers of transparent colour. The small scale complements her technique and contributes to the intimate character of her still lifes. Through her paintings, she hopes to express a feeling of calm and quiet.