A Tide of Memory

I’ve blogged previously about how writers need to look to other art forms for inspiration. There’s nothing like it for creative energy, for ideas, for theme. The work of Liz Sutherland, a painter from North London whose studio I visited this weekend as part of the Wood Green Open Studios event, evokes an amorphous yet intense feeling linked to memory and its legacies. Her landscapes impress with a varied approach to paint application—sometimes slathered, sometimes dappled, or splashed—suggesting a focus on layers: of paint, time, lingering, palimpsestic images.

Both her landscapes and figurative works in oil display a buttery quality— which itself is smooth, yet elusive and an apt metaphor for the theme. The work is rich in emotion, blurred but familiar, much like memory. Greatly inspired by the sea, Sutherland explores the relationship between the coastline and the water—how they shape one another through layers of rock, wave, and water. Her depictions of Scotland’s empty yet beautiful beaches feel as warm and beguiling, and perhaps as misleading, as childhood memories. 

Movement is a strong presence on these canvases. Sutherland’s figures are undefined— whether trudging, looming, balancing, or flying through memory and space. They seem like remnants of energy moving through landscapes, allowing the viewer to see both the present motion and peer back through time. Angles are strange and jarring. Dancers leap and twirl fantastically through the V&A. The sea pulls and thrashes onto the beach. Figures float, loom, recede, and hulk, all creating a dreamlike atmosphere that feels tied to childhood memories of the cold yet exotic Scottish coast. Sutherland’s ability to convey movement is remarkable.

Her work hints at the thrill of discovering new places, often tinged with a sense of discomfort. Her palette and occasional use of an iPad show clear influences of Hockney, while her bright Fauvist colours and carved figures perhaps nod to Gauguin, suggesting the uneasy legacy of colonisation, and as with Gauguin, there’s hidden black and murk present too.

As a committed cold-water swimmer, Sutherland’s connection to water even extends into her cityscapes. Her palette captures all shades of water—from cold blue-grey to near Caribbean greens and blues. Elsewhere, her colours are nebulous—luminous greens, pinks, and blues—creating otherworldly landscapes. At times, her works seem as though they might glow in the dark, adding a strange, haunting quality. Like memory, they are alien yet familiar. I loved this show.