Susan Foord, born in London in 1945, studied fine art at Leeds Metropolitan University  (1980 – 1983) where she became a visiting lecturer (1990 – 1992).  She  has won the Rowney Centenary Prize (1983), Granada Foundation Award (1984) and Arts Club Prize from the Royal Academy of Arts (1994).  In 1993 Foord relocated to Bristol and was elected a member of the Royal West of England Academy in 1997.

 

“The seeming simplicity of Susan Foord’s paintings belie an impressive range of techniques – images of views as though seen through a window to horizons of seascapes and landscapes – although pared down to the very “essence” of landscape.  The translucent Whistleresque layers and use of scraffito achieve a feeling of great distance. Other paintings are reminiscent of still lives, diaphanous, floating images, almost Japanese in feel and with a wonderful paint effect that has the luminescence of pastels. 
Foord’s framing of the image intensifies it.  By creating a surrounding solid border distant dimensions are revealed that are endlessly ponderable.”

                                                                                              Jane Toler, Artist and Art writer