Sue studied Fashion at St Martins School of Art and eventually Textiles / Embroidery at Goldsmiths College in London where she was taught by Christine Risley, Eirian Short and the indomitable Constance Howard, all of whom have had a profound influence on her working practice ever since.

Sue combines machine and hand stitch to create dense, intricate, often autobiographical pieces which, while they can contain overtones of homeliness and domesticity, have great pictorial and intellectual strength.

Inspiration is drawn from subjects both past and present, all with some connection to her own life and environment: the Grimsby fishing industry and its demise; the beaches of England’s east coast; the Lincolnshire landscape. Sue is also an accomplished photographer, and this work, combined with historical images from her own and others’ family albums, forms the basis of her compositions.

Her textile work is underpinned by a great belief in drawing - as a thought process, as a means of sorting out and solving problems, and as a form of expression in its own right. Thread and stitch are used as a means of mark making and all its facets: line/colour/texture/tone, the stitches multiplying and building until the image is complete. Her stitch vocabulary is simple and straightforward; straight stitch, blanket stitch,chain stitch and needleweaving. Working mainly with fine machine embroidery thread and stranded cotton means that she can vary the number of threads in the needle and leave the eye to mix the colour, slowly building the finished image in much the same way as Neo-Impressionist painters such as Georges Seurat and, more recently, Chuck Close.

Thus a modest photograph from her past is transformed into a powerful iconic image, true to its humble roots but also a beacon of belief in the human spirit.

Alf Ludlam, October 2009