From walking the coast paths to exploring the Dartmoor tors, artist Susan Kester has increasingly spent the last two years sketching, photographing and observing the inspirational landscapes and ancient artefacts of Devon. 

Most importantly, as she travels around the west country, she collects discarded objects, both natural and man-made. Her personal museum of ephemera has grown as a result and now ranges from a toy lead cowboy retrieved whilst gardening to pieces of unusual beach flotsam washed up on the pebbles at Budleigh Salterton. 

Susan was born in Atlanta, USA. After living in southern Spain, Venezuela and LosAngeles, she has developed an awareness of how combinations of these seemingly unrelated lone objects can define our sense of place. 

She paints and draws odd, humorous and poignant still-lives of juxtaposed objects. They celebrate the hidden stories, relationships and mythology lurking in all objects,whether a lichen-encrusted standing stone or a shiny pebble lying on pebblebed heaths high above East Devon’s Jurassic Coast. 

Susan studied Fine Art at Goldsmith’s, London; Printmaking at Central St Martin’s and received an MA in Drawing at Oxford Brookes. She has taught specialist drawing classes, staged numerous successful exhibitions and undertaken various residencies internationally. She now mainly works in studios in Devon and Stroud, Gloucestershire.

Find out more at susankester.com and on Instagram at susan.kester

PV is on Thursday 13th February 6-8pm, everyone very welcome!

SPECIAL EVENT - Susan will be running a drawing session in the gallery on Wednesday 12th February, 2-4:30pm. This will be free of charge, places will be limited and participants will be required to bring their own materials. Please contact skester@outlook.com for details.