Susan Tooke at Long Branch Studios

installation shot of "Woodlands" at Gallery Page and Strange    Visual Viewpoints: Tooke invites viewers to Woodlands show the Chronicle Herald, Arts and Life, September 18, 2013 - 5:41pm  BY ELISSA BARNARD ARTS REPORTER I have been to Hemlock Ravine, but I have never seen it the way  Halifax artist  Susan Tooke does. Her woods teem in colour and line in a cheerful and exciting new  show, Woodlands,  at Gallery Page  and Strange at 1869 Granville St.  in Halifax until Sept. 27. The side of each wood panel is painted in the acrylic colour — red,  or teal, or royal  blue or green —  that will dominate the background  of each image.  With eye-popping colour, outlines and a visceral  energy in her lines and abstracted  forms, Tooke  continues to create  an exalted experience of the land that she first  introduced in her  show,  Transformation, two years ...

Back to elm street studio. Summer has lots of distractions.  It is a time for gathering ideas, working in the garden, traveling, hiking, socializing.   Ideas from Shannon Falls, BC have stuck with me... Here is the latest work from the studio.

Near Shannon Falls  acrylic on canvas 36" x 48" Ravine acrylic on canvas 36" x 60" I am currently working on a series of woodland paintings.  The  complexity of the imagery, combining minimal sky, vertical forms, tangles of roots, soft carpets of moss challenge me to find the structure in the composition.  So often I have turned my back on the forests, heading instead for the shore and the action of the waves and wind, the ancient formations of rock molded by the elements.  Now I am returning to the coolness of the woods, full of mystery, decomposition and rebirth.