Sue grew up in Dorset & the New Forest and for the last 25 years has lived in Dorset with her husband and three sons. Self taught as an artist & becoming increasingly productive over the last 8-9 years, she works in various media including pastel, watercolour, acrylic and charcoal. Her subjects are mostly drawn from rural life - animals, figures, landscapes, plants. Her sensitively composed work is full of life and light.
She has spent most of her working life in the horticultural industry after studying Horticulture at Wye College [London University] in 1972. From there a brief spell with Kent County council as a landscape design assistant, then to Kingston Lacy, near Wimborne where she was Head Gardener for a short period in the final days of its private ownership and before the National Trust. She worked as a sales executive and designer for a group of Sussex nurseries, and then built up & ran a plant centre with her husband from 1983-2003 next to their home in Dorset. During this time she designed a successful series of plant information cards illustrated by sketches which were used nationally in garden centres. Painting has had to fit in around horticulture until recent times, and now she works in the studio more than the potting shed but her heart is in both.
Exhibitions
2008 Dorset Art Weeks Studio Exhibition. Milton on Stour (end of May)
2007 'Rural Heart' Solo Exhibition. The Exchange Gallery, Sturminster Newton
2006 Society of Graphic Fine Art Annual Open Exhibition, London
2006 Dorset Art Weeks Solo Exhibition. Orchard Park Garden Centre, Gillingham
2004 Sherborne Art Club Annual Open Exhibition
2004 Dorset Art Weeks Studio Exhibition. Milton on Stour
2004 Art at the Park exhibition Thetford, Norfolk
2003 Bath & West Show Art Exhibition, Shepton Mallet
2003 Society of Graphic Fine Art Annual Open Exhibition, Bath
2002 Dorset Art Weeks Studio Exhibition. Milton on Stour
2001 First Studio exhibition Milton on Stour
2000 Salisbury Small Pictures mixed exhibition
2000 Young Challenge Trophy Winner Art Exhibition. Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show
1999 Young Challenge Trophy Winner Art Exhibition. Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show
There is a relaxed informality about Sue Hardy's work that is true to her warm personality. I have known her since university, when she would draw with a flair and sureness of line that was the envy of other artists. This flair is especially tested by drawing the human form, both faces and figures. As an artist, I know how exacting this category of work is, how easy it is to criticize, but how difficult to get it right - and impossible to get it both right and relaxed.
Sue has been involved with design and plants most of her life. Without realising it she has been honing the skills needed to produce a range of paintings and drawings of orchards and their occupants that are beautiful in form and radiant with light.
Diana Miller M.A. 2006
www.diana-miller.co.uk
Paintings can be seen at—
First View Gallery, National Trust Stourhead, Wilts.
Peter Hedley Gallery, Wareham, Dorset.
Artist’s own studio/gallery, Gillingham, Dorset
Orchard Park Garden Centre, Gillingham, Dorset
SEE GALLERY LINKS ON CONTACT PAGE
PLEASE CONTACT SUE FOR ALL VIEWING DETAILS
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The copyright of all images on this website are owned by the artist Sue Hardy
and may not be reproduced in any form without her permission. |
