Susan McClure is a Birmingham-based artist who paints the world about her – whether people, landscapes or still life.  She sees parallels, analogies and connections everywhere, and is as interested in who a person is, what they express, and how they relate to the places they find themselves in, as in how landscapes were formed, the human activity that maintains them, and their sense of place.  She sees each painting as simultaneously an abstract and a detailed, informative representation, and hopes to communicate her appreciation of other people, and of the world, at both emotional and aesthetic levels.  She works in the field and in the studio from her own photographs and sketches, and in the case of portraits, directly from the person modelling.

Susan (nee Maguire) was born and brought up in London, lived for 14 years in Manchester, and has lived since 1988 in Moseley, Birmingham, with her husband and two children.  She now has a grandson, who lives with his parents in Kings Heath.  She appreciates and enjoys the city while concentrating in her paintings on its green spaces, and on the British and Irish countryside, which she has always visited regularly.

She studied Geography and then Landscape Design at Manchester University, and worked for over 20 years as a landscape architect for both urban and rural sites.  Susan also taught on the University of Central England (now Birmingham City University) Landscape Design courses as a Visiting Lecturer for 16 years.

She has painted and made things since early childhood.  Since the mid-90’s she has gradually developed her artist practice in parallel with her career in landscape architecture.  Painting has been her main occupation since 2002.  Susan plays folk fiddle and melodeon in the Moseley Village Band and Cuckoo’s Nest barn dance band, and enjoys singing, reading, listening to classical and folk music, and gardening.