Susan Mannion

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Elements: earth fire

Elements: wood metal

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Susan is a full-time professional artist and curator and she is passionate about enamelling and printmaking, in particular, the specialism of vitreous enamel on copper and wood engraving.

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She works with paper, wood, copper and steel making her mark with ink and coloured glass, each transformed by pressure in a press or heat in a kiln - an alchemy.  Her work both embraces the tradition of enamelling and also seeks to push the boundaries of this art form by using multiple plates, three-dimensional forms and overlaying of colour.  Susan is always striving to push the limits, experimenting with incised work and colour horizons. High firing of the vitreous enamels in the kiln drives the enamels to produce some amazing colours and interesting effects, enhanced by layering and cutting back through the levels and using sgraffito technique. By applying  powdered glass to the copper surface and firing at 950 degrees, causes the powdered glass to liquefy, forming a skin of glass on the copper surface, an exciting process that produces unique, highly tactile pieces; a form of alchemy.

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Susan is influenced by landscape and patterns in nature, fascinated by the meeting point or transition from one form to another; where water meets the shore or when hard architectural shapes are reflected on the soft forms of water in a river or lake surface. My work evolves from observed detail captured by sketching then laying down the image onto the vessel or copper plate surface creating intricate thread-like lines and fine textural incisions to create an atmospheric, surreal aesthetic, distilling a sense of place, time and memory.

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With over 20 years curatorial experience, Susan has participated in many group exhibitions including the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Royal Ulster Academy and Royal Hibernian Academy Exhibitions.  She has had five solo exhibitions, one of which was commissioned for the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh, one was an award from the Roscommon Visual Artists Forum for the Roscommon Arts Centre and one was an exhibition in the National Museum of Ireland.