Tag: abstract landscapes

Happy New Year 2025!!

January 1st 2025: the sky is grey, and outside sways in blustering winds. Inside, time to ponder days gone by and look ahead to footsteps new. And somewhere between the ruminating and the planning, time to pause.

New Year’s Eve was spent painting, while outside, intermittent fireworks dotted the skies. More on my current work-in-progress painting another time, but several other artworks came to fruition in 2024, inspired by visited waterscapes, lily ponds in particular. The first is from The Lost Gardens of Heligan, with a touch of magic added, a place where bush and tree crowd busy pools and giant pads weave sturdy, watery webs.

The second is a woven piece, part landscape, part imagination, and with a nod to the many heron sightings the year blessed me with.

And the third place, a lily pond mosaic, pools of interconnectedness with thanks to the communities that feel like home.

In the world of writing, it’s been wonderful to meet new readers at various events, as well as catch up with fellow writers who offer so much to inspire. WorldCon in Glasgow, the 82nd World Science Fiction Convention, was a highlight, taking part in panel discussions, and seeing the live interview of Nnedi Okorafor, an author who brings Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism into the hearts of our home.

 

Publishing news for 2024 included an article in FOCUS, The British Science Fiction Association Magazine for Writers, and it was great to grab my copy at WorldCon.

Next stop, and I’m looking forward to doing it all over again in April for Eastercon, Belfast style.

And while the edits continue for my next novel, Book 3 of Blood Gift Chronicles…

Time to pause for a breath of fresh air, and the magic of Dartmoor, among ancient oaks, mossy boulders, misty woods and granite tops.

Wishing everyone and happy and peaceful New Year 2025!

xxx

Artistic Inspiration

News from my world of Art, and it was wonderful to discover that my painting, ‘Rural Market’, won an Honourable Mention Award in the 2023 Teravarna Art Competition.

Rural Market; by Susie Williamson

This piece is from my collection of African inspired landscapes depicted in my Abstract Landscapes blog – click here. These pieces are painted from memory, thought, feeling… work motivated quite simply to remember friends from a time I lived and worked on the continent in 1999 into early 2000s, including three years in South Africa.

#IWD2021 Abstract Landscapes

Throughout March 2021 Menduina Schneider Art Gallery in Los Angeles have organised a month-long art exhibit to celebrate International Women’s Day.

Click here to view my video entry.

Considering which piece to enter from my collection of acrylics on canvas, I was drawn to the African landscapes and waterscapes.

Lagoon – (Actual size 50x50cms)

Beach Life – (Actual size 50x50cms)

Trading Bays – (Actual size 50x50cms)

Women’s Work – (Actual size 100x50cms)

          

The following collection entitled, Perspectives, was inspired by daily life in South Africa, in particular from the perspective of hawkers and the long distances travelled to sell their wares.

Perspectives Collection

Home – (Actual size 50x50cms)

Long Walk – (Actual Size 50x50cms)

At Market – (Actual size 50x50cms)

The work also considers the connection between people and land, a connection which is increasingly lost in a complex commercial world. The following piece, Desert Life, was the piece selected for the exhibit.

Desert Life – (Actual size 120x30cms)

          

The gallery stated that ‘Desert Life’ was selected for its palette:

“When you think about the desert, you imagine something barren. You don’t imagine something this beautiful. It is filled with colours. Why? It could be the desert or it could be the life spent by yourself, filled with memories, with dreams, with different roads you have taken, and the ones still waiting for you. Are those trees and water there, or are they in the imagination of the woman that is carrying a basket? Are these her friends? The fact that Susie has travelled to these places, the insight she has, the work is tender and poignant.”

To view the live gallery video, click here.

To view more art on my instagram page, click here.