Sue Charles

• Audio description of "Eli's Creek, Isle au Haut" by Sue Charles

  
  

  Audio description of "Eli's Creek, Isle au Haut" by Sue Charles, an artist-in-residence at Acadia in 2018.
  Audio Transcript

  This is an 18 x 24-inch oil painting on a wood panel that makes use of embedded patches of gold and palladium to simulate dappled sunlight reflecting down from the sky, through a dense forest canopy, and across water that stirs in a creek flowing through in the center of a quiet woodland.

  Trees in the middle distance give the scene greater vertical emphasis with layers of narrow trunks that rise quickly into the canopy. A small sliver of a mountain range is seen in the distance.

  Below, water seems to pool at intervals along a rock ledge. To the left, dark saturated earth along the creekbank transitions to verdant greens of mosses and small, low-lying plants along the busy forest floor.

"Eli's Creek, Isle au Haut" 18 x 24 inches, oil, gold, palladium on cradled wood panel

Courtesy of Sue Charles. Used with permission

My painting, Eli's Creek is about the ways light flows through a forest, changing tone as it is obscured by branches, and reflects off the ocean and the creek, creating curious shapes which interlock like a puzzle. The feeling of purposeful connection between all natural things is present in the untouched landscape of Isle au Haut; the sense of the forest's slow, lumbering frame of time is palpable.

–Sue Charles

Sue Charles

Sue Charles paints along the coast of New England, translating the landscape into abstract hierarchical relationships of light and color. She exhibits her work at numerous galleries in Massachusetts and Maine, has won regional and national awards and is in many collections, most notably of Susan and David Rockefeller, Jr.

A native of Scituate, MA, Sue now lives in Newbury, MA and Lamoine, ME. A graduate of Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, Sue learned the classic techniques of figure painting but has always loved the landscape. “The natural landscape is fascinating. Everything fits together perfectly, like a puzzle. Trees for instance, don’t grow randomly up and out, but grow only into the available space. The best landscape paintings offer a tantalizing glimpse into this purposeful connection between all natural things, and they stay with you—an image you can recall— like a hummable melody. I aim for that.” Visit her website, www.suecharlesstudio.com

Duration:

1 minute, 48 seconds

Sue Charles says she was first drawn to apply for the Artist-in-Residence program at Acadia National Park as a way to give something back to the park for its work to conserve a special landscape. “For a painter, it’s a really beautiful place to paint.” A resident of Newbury, MA and Lamoine, ME, Charles paints all along the coast of New England, translating the landscape into abstract hierarchical relationships of light and color. As a student years ago, she learned classic techniques of figure painting, but has always loved the landscape. “It’s like everywhere you look, there’s paintings. And there’s really no end to it. I don’t think you would ever be able to not have an idea of something to paint up here.” (Video by Will Newton, Friends of Acadia/NPS)

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