About

Susan Hitching attended Winchester School of Art from 1976 to 1979, where she learnt gas and arc welding.  She  trained under Guiseppe Lund (metalsmith and sculptor) forging techniques.
As well as forged steel, Susan used found metal from farm implements to shape her early sculptures. She describes these early pieces as “reflecting the visual shapes scored into the land used in arable farming.”

Susan also worked with wood and clay, but when she left England for southern Ireland in 2007, she left her forging equipment behind. It was a decision that ended one chapter and began another.
While undertaking an art therapy summer school at Cork’s Crawford College in 2013, Susan started creating narrative paintings that were in conversation with the poetry she had begun to write. It was a way of expressing her life story and struggles in both images and words.

Living in north Kerry surrounded by the history and folklore of ancient topography, Susan found her imagination ignited too. “These stories and landscapes are the main source of my pictures and poetry,” she says. “Against this backdrop, I infuse elements of my personal story.”

Susan published her debut poetry collection, dare I be gentle, early in 2020.
Starting with the kernel idea, Susan sketches with charcoal, making large representational sweeping marks. She then adds paint, working intuitively and allowing the original kernel to morph or even disappear entirely as she trusts the mark-making’s developments. “My work takes on a life of its own, and I go with it.”