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Artists Sue Williamson and Sarah Morris are worlds apart in the subjects that they paint and print, and yet the works in their new show “Contrasting Environments” are rewardingly complementary and coherent, taking audiences on a cross-continent journey from the sharp city lines of Stockholm, to Venice’s shimmering canal reflections, all the way to the rural coastal fields of Devon.

Artizan Gallery welcomes this stunning two woman show from the accomplished pair of Devon artists, whose artistic explorations are found exclusively in their experiences of the landscapes they pass through. It is this emphasis on experience that binds the work, whilst the subjects, with Sue’s focus on urban and built environments and Sarah’s on more rural plains, offer pleasing juxtapositions of subject matter and scene.

“Our individual interests in landscape are very complementary and our creative intentions, and to some extent practices, have similarities. Each of us is striving to say something of our responses to places that are of significant importance to our experiences, and which inspire the need to communicate and involve the viewer in the journey.” Sue Williamson

At first glance, the similarities may appear to end here. Buildings, streets, windows, landmarks, crowd into view from all sides in Sue’s surreal scenes, with stairways to nowhere, space becoming object, reflection reality. Meanwhile Sarah’s works fall off the edge of the raw edges of her canvas area, bold blocks of colour that see her hills role away and skies expand indefinitely out of view.

But Sue goes onto explain that there is more in their practice that binds them than splits them, “Within the two different disciplines, we each explore the language of colour in similar ways in that extensive layering of colour is fundamental to how we each explore surface and depth to define ideas and realize intentions.”

Sue’s paintings emerge from first-hand experiences of her travels to European cities and towns. Her intentions are to recall the visual and emotional experiences of time spent exploring these urban environments. Observations are recorded in the form of drawings and photographs, and through deconstruction, juxtaposing and layering of her subject matter her intentions are to recreate residual memories and evoke sensations of the passage of time when moving through architectural spaces, with colour, light, volume, and space form the backbone of her visual language.

Sarah specializes in woodcuts, all of which are printed by hand using a wooden spoon and rollers, allowing better control on the printed areas. Working with wood allows her to control depth and intensity, building layer upon layer of rich colours. Though the works are prints, the methodology is more painterly, and the resulting images are one-offs, each woodcut unique, a reflection of the ever-changing landscapes which serve as her inspiration.

She is a keen cyclist and when out riding has been inspired by the vivid, bright, and often stark nature surrounding her. Colour is an integral part of her work, as she seeks to reflect the richness of these landscapes and many of the woodcuts are abstracts of the vistas she rides through on the moors and her locale.