Susan Abbs

Susan Abbs was born in Singapore and has lived in the UK since 1994. Growing up in the tropics, she was surrounded by intense light and heat, an influence that continues to shape her work. Her practice explores light, atmosphere and shifting states, often through landscape and increasingly in more abstracted forms. She is particularly interested in how light moves, reflects and transforms a surface.

Susan’s practice has evolved through a series of interconnected bodies of work. Parklife, developed following an artist residency at Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham, explored the fleeting energy of British summers. Since moving to Cambridge, the expansive skies of the Fens have inspired Skygazing, while Light on the Horizon, Transitions and Breaking Through explore hope, resilience, transformation and change through increasingly abstract compositions and reflective metal surfaces.

Her latest series, Breathscapes, sees colour return to the work. Inspired by the deep inhale and long exhale that follows a significant life experience, the series explores relief, renewal and the quiet realisation of having made it through.

Susan's work is held in private collections in the UK and internationally. She has exhibited at Mall Galleries, Bankside Gallery and Cambridge Contemporary Art, and her work features in the Cambridge Art Book. Alongside her studio practice she teaches art in Cambridge and leads life drawing at Hills Road Sixth Form College. She is the founder of the Nightingale Art Fair and President of the Cambridge Drawing Society.