Suzanna Reynolds
Visual Artist
about
Scottish-Herefordshire based contemporary artist, Suzanna Reynolds harnesses drawing, painting, and digital photography to direct the raw contours of human experience. Forged by 40 years in social work, her expressionistic practice merges visceral mark-making with dreamlike surrealism, channelling the psychological intensity of Francis Bacon and the mythic symbolism of Ken Kiff.
A self-taught creator turned award winning graduate, she earned a First-Class Honours from Hereford College of Arts (2013). That same year her work was selected for the Three Choirs Exhibition and honoured with the Meadow Arts Award. This dual recognition, anchored by the Courtyard, Herefordshire Centre for the Arts, cemented her arrival as vital voice in contemporary figurative art.
Suzanna's work, exhibited internationally and held in private collections across the UK and US, defies decorative comfort, translating inner worlds into large-scale immersive imagery that pulses with an ancient and universal resonance.
statement
My work is a form of subconscious archaeology—an excavation of memory, grief, and survival. Rooted in a lifetime of experience, it draws upon my early years shaped by childhood illness, my decades of work in frontline social care, and the emotional and psychological aftermath of profound personal loss and trauma. These layers form the substrata of my practice: raw, unflinching, and emotionally charged.
I work intuitively with charcoal, pastel, and acrylic, allowing the materials to guide me into the depths of feeling that resist language. The process is not about controlling the image but about surrendering to it—following a thread of emotional resonance until it speaks back. Charcoal, with its impermanence and ability to cling, feels particularly apt—like memory itself, it marks, smudges, erases, and returns.
Large scale is essential to how I work. It becomes a kind of embodiment—requiring the full reach of my body, enabling a gestural physicality that holds the emotional charge. These works often span two or three metres, drawing the viewer into immersive encounters that echo the psychic overwhelm they emerge from. It’s not about representation—it’s about presence. A visceral immediacy. A confrontation with what lies beneath.
My imagery is figurative but haunted—stretching between the symbolic and the surreal. The figures, often maternal or spectral, inhabit ambiguous spaces and emotional thresholds. I’m drawn to Renaissance composition, but my use of colour—or its absence—follows a different logic: psychological, instinctive, even alchemical. Greys, blacks, and flesh tones dominate, punctuated by moments of deep blue, bruised yellow, or sudden, almost violent red.
Themes of grief, the body, sexuality, spirituality, and survival are constant. My background in Freudian and Jungian theory has long informed my understanding of dream language and unconscious expression, and these influences appear in the symbolic layers of my compositions. But the art itself emerges from a place beneath theory—a place of rupture, of raw knowing. I often describe my process as an exorcism: something that must come through me to survive.
This journey—of survival, of embodiment, of reckoning—has recently led me into painting. After years working almost exclusively in charcoal, I have begun to introduce colour through the darkness. This shift, though subtle, marks a significant development in my practice: an exploration of containment, control, and the possibility of transformation through hue. Acrylic allows for a different kind of tension—between gesture and boundary, chaos and form. My upcoming exhibition, Tides of Truths Unspoken, opens this next chapter. It gathers works that are bolder in scale, more expansive in colour, yet still tethered to the psychological terrain I have always inhabited. These pieces hold silence and rupture side by side—inviting the viewer not only to look, but to feel. They mark a threshold, both in my practice and in myself.
CURRICULUM VITAE
5th - 31st May 2025
TIDES OF TRUTHS UNSPOKEN - Solo Exhibition
Bloom Space, Hereford
Drawings paintings prints digital
1 -12th March 2025
UNSEEN - Group Exhibition
Bloom Space. Hereford
diverse exhibition showcasing 20 artists in the HWAN
(Herefordshire Visual Art Network)
1 - 11th November 2024
SlayHayLife OPEN
The Chair. Hay-on-Wye
14 -21st October 2024
UNFRAMED - Group Exhibition
The Left Bank. Hereford
A diverse exhibition showcasing 20 artists in the HWAN
(Herefordshire Visual Art Network)
7th-15th September 2024
2024- Herefordshire Art Week. .
OPEN STUDIOS
Exhibition will run until December
viewing by appointment
tel: 07989 454280
email: suzannareynolds@ymail.com
Suzanna unfortunately had to take a career break with her Art, due to the Covid pandemic and then severe ill health.
Exhibitions (2010 - Present):
• Jan - March 2016:
The Courtyard, Hereford - Solo Show
• September 2013:
Posterity. Let’s Face It
• June 2013: Summer Show - Hereford College of Arts, Prize-winne
• March 2013: Solo Show -
Kidwell’s Law, Hereford
• January 2013:
The Courtyard, Hereford
• November 2012:
The Hub, HCA, Hereford
• July 2012:
Three Choirs Exhibition - Artist representing Herefordshire, The Courtyard, Hereford
• May 2012 - 2013:
Book Art, Various UK Venues, Prize-winner
• Jan 2012:
Featured Spotlight Interview, Artweb.com
• Jan 2012:
Featured Website of the Week, Artweb.com
• Jan - Feb 2012:
Second Helpings, Apple Store Gallery, Hereford
• 2011 - 2012:
Book Art, Various UK Venues, Commendation
• April - June 2011:
Take One, Hereford City Museum and Art Gallery
• 2010 - 2011:
Book Art, Various UK Venues
• Sept 2010:
The Old House Museum, Hereford
• Sept 2010:
MINIWORKS, The Courtyard, Hereford, Prize-winn
• June 2010:
Summer Show, Hereford College of Arts
• August 2010:
The Big Chill Festival
Residencies:
• 2011: Downstairs, Herefordshire
• 2013: Meadow Arts, Croft Castle, Prize-winner 2013
Shows (prior to 2013):
• 2001:
Ombersley Gallery, Worcestershire - Solo Show
• 2001:
Malvern Theatres - Solo Show
• 2001:
Broadway Modern, John Noot Galleries Worcestershire
• 2001:
Sheffield Showroom - Solo Show
• 2001:
Equilibrium, Chiswick, London
• 2001:
Cowleigh Gallery, Malvern, Worcestershire
• 2002:
Ombersley Gallery, Worcestershire
• 2002:
Broadway Modern, John Noot Gallerie Worcestershire
• 2002:
Chelsea Art Fair, London.
• 2002:
Fairfax Gallery, Tunbridge Wells
• 2003:
Broadway Modern, John Noot Galleries Worcestershire
• 2003:
Malvern Theatres, Worcestershire
• 2003:
Cowleigh Gallery, Malvern, Worcestershire
Education:
• 2013: First Class B.A. Hons Fine Art,
Hereford College of Arts, University of Wales
• 2012: Foundation Degree, Contemporary Art Practice, Hereford College of Arts, University of Wales
• 2010: Foundation Diploma in Art and Design University of the Arts London
• 1981: CQSW, Dip SW,
University of Edinburgh
• 1978: B.Sc. Psychology/History of Art
University of St Andrews
contact
Tel: +44 7989 454280
Studio: The Mill, Monksbury Court Barns, Ledbury Herefordshire HR82TU UK