PAEON

Solo Show, 163 Gallery, London. June 2020.

PAEON* IS THE FIRST SOLO SHOW FEATURING ALL-NEW WORK BY SUSAN ROCKLIN, RECENT GRADUATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART.

Rocklin’s oil on linen paintings are explorations of the feminine in re-imagined worlds. Female characters encounter cowboys and animals - who become benign companions within natural landscapes. Always, there is a  sense of precariousness in these fragmentary narratives. Susan conflates historical time and place.  Everything is spun into a flux by magical thinking, to express the fragility and mystery of life behind the surface reality.

Colour is the emotional touchstone of my painting. It guides my hand and uses me as the conduit for its own power. There is no conscious logic to it, but rather a ‘coming into being’. Paintings paint themselves.

~ Susan Rocklin

*Paeon is the Greek word for the peony flower. Like its closely-packed petals, the peony is metaphorically dense - in Chinese culture it stands for the Spring, female beauty, fertility, compassion, prosperity and, significantly, for the capacity to heal and make good. Paeon was also the Greek physician to the Gods. The words morph into another form - paean - a hymn of praise.