Glow - Paintings by Susie Hamilton

The subject of much of my work is bright light. My figures are melted into light, showered with light, cast hard shadows in oppressive Moroccan heat, are exposed in the neon of a supermarket aisle or fixed in the dazzle of a glitzy banquet.

Light is not a particularly comfortable thing in my paintings but sharp, intense and overwhelming and the figure can seem vulnerable in its glare. In these pictures the human figure is replaced by a creature—a loris, tarsier or bushbaby—and the drama between menace and vulnerability is intensified. These endangered, nocturnal creatures are uncovered in the darkness of their forests and crouch, threatened in the beam of a searchlight.