28th January – 11th February 2025
Sue Steele’s work has changed dramatically over the years, from her beginnings at GSA, rooted in a traditional painting practice, to working in a myriad of constantly evolving mediums, Sue has established herself as a mainstay of the Glaswegian art scene. In this new exhibition of work, Start Where You Are, Sue presents a series of portraits of her colleagues from Greencity Whole Foods in Dennistoun alongside a collection of mixed-media self-portraits, textiles, masks, and linocuts, all in the dynamic and avant-garde style we’ve come to expect from Sue, and we’re delighted to welcome her back to Six Foot Gallery.
Read our interview with Sue over on our blog >>
It’s a journey of self-exploration. I’m not sure what it’s saying but I identify with it and it excites me.
Towards the end of art school Sue found herself isolated as a painter, and from mainstream art and society as a whole, so she took off across Europe on a quest to establish her identity. It was there that she discovered other underground, mainly self-taught artists, mostly from a travelling background, and together they created a new concept of art, artists, and places where art could be viewed, giving Sue the excitement and freedom that she craved. While in Berlin, Sue crossed paths with the Mutoid Waste Company, a performance arts group founded in London in the early eighties. They became a huge part of her life, heavily influencing the way she thought about and made art, and leading her to Mutonia, an arts commune in Rimini in Italy, where she became part of the collective of artists there.
Emerging from the pandemic and returning to Glasgow after the death of her dad, Sue found a lifeline in the form of Greencity Whole Foods, an ethically sourced, vegetarian food and drink wholesaler based in Dennistoun; a workers co-op, democratically run by its members since 1978. Greencity had been on Sue’s radar for some time, with many of her friends and her brother doing stints there over the years. She joined the team two years ago as an HGV driver, and has never looked back. Greencity was an oasis which gave her community, support, and purpose.
Sue wanted to celebrate her Greencity co-workers in a way that captured the energy of their shared workplace and that could articulate the hope and belief it inspired in her. Although Sue admits that the resulting portraits were initially challenging, she came to find the process deeply gratifying. The ever expanding collection of joyous, bright paintings are full of personality and clearly express the enthusiasm that Sue associates with her colleagues, and with Greencity.
I think the fact that I struggled with them gave them a fierce strength and a life of their own that I like. They are very honest portraits.
The self-portraits featured in the show were painted by Sue during lockdown when she was, like so many of us, feeling isolated as an artist and losing her sense of self. The self-imposed discipline of creating daily enabled Sue to see her painting skills improving day by day; tangible progress in a world that had come to a standstill.
“A couple of years later I revisited the self-portraits and thought they were AWFUL. To me, they didn’t work as paintings, they were just bad self-portraits… so, I tore them in half! When I collaged them back together, they sang out to me and finally turned into something I could identify with. They sat around for another year or so until I got them professionally framed, and now they’re on display here. They tell the story of a very personal journey. They are finished.”
In my adult life I’ve continued to be drawn to the punk movement. I love its spontaneity, the reactivity of it, the fact that you don’t have to be good at what you’re doing but you have to feel it.
The hand printed backdrops, textile works, and masks on display throughout the gallery are part of Sue’s experimental installations. By combining the many mediums and disciplines that she works with, Sue creates her own stages and becomes part of the performance.
These constructed scenes are then photographed, by herself or by other photographers, and the resulting photographs wholly evoke the attitude and rawness that Sue so loves about punk.
Connect with Sue and see more of her work on Instagram. Start Where You Are runs at Six Foot Gallery until Tuesday 11th February 2025.