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No/rmal

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Two thirds of the way through a painting degree with the Open College of the Arts, I needed some text to insert into a large painting/collage illustrating the idea of rifts. Previous pieces in this series have been geo-political, socio-political, and imagined; this one is about mental capacity and health. I’ve spent my professional life as a clinical psychologist working with adults with intellectual disabilities. When I began in the 1980s, they were still ‘mentally handicapped patients’ housed in huge, bleak, emotionally barren institutions. The classification was an improvement on previous terminology, much of which has found its way into … Continue reading No/rmal

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Art from words/words from art – liminality

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Here the Magic Must Be The river was almost at its zenith, that tipping point between the heaving press of the sea from the coast and the thundering weight of dark, fresh water draining from the hills. It glittered and sparkled along its banks as if strung with fairy lights. The woman twiddled her handkerchief until it knotted and then pushed it into her pocket. Twice a day, every day, all of heaven and earth balanced here on this point, she thought. For reassurance, she felt for the handle of the knife that sat quiet next to the handkerchief and … Continue reading Art from words/words from art – liminality

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Art from Words – Blue Bus to Keswick

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Blue Bus to Keswick Blue bus to Keswick; Sodden greens under a biscuit tin sky. Ambleside is tourist rammed, and Keswick is a black-stoned webcam terminus, dotted with bright visiting anoraks looking for lunch. The masked passengers stretch their legs and join the rain-bowed pedestrians hopping puddles through the streets, while the driver breaths out a safe arrival and turns the rest of us off. Source post via Strayfish Arts. Continue reading Art from Words – Blue Bus to Keswick

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Art from words – using narratives to make pictures and incorporating text

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to make art on the basis of other people’s words – two to accompany poems and one a book cover – and latterly my painting course has introduced projects that require paintings drawing on narratives from stories. These can be news stories, fiction, poetry; anything that takes hold emotionally and inspires a composition. The projects also feature something called appropriation, which is when you take something, a photograph or print of someone else’s painting, and incorporate it into your own work, often without referencing the appropriated piece. This makes me uncomfortable as both the scientific … Continue reading Art from words – using narratives to make pictures and incorporating text

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Emily Buckingham and the Major’s Madam

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Emily Buckingham and the Major’s Madam Up until the point at which she first met Mrs Wilberforce, Emily Buckingham’s life had been about as eventful as a well-prepared cucumber sandwich; there were few shocks to be had in such a thing. Now though, as she lay supine in the mud – a Bruegelian Lady of Shallot, her dress billowing in quantities of putrescence, it could hardly be more eventful. Matters began with an incident on an omnibus. The vehicle in question had come to a precipitous halt at the roadside, near to where Miss Buckingham’s carriage rested, in order to … Continue reading Emily Buckingham and the Major’s Madam

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