Quirky artist’s exhibition delights family

Quirky artist’s exhibition delights family

Chinese war refugee Sue Soo earned a place in New Zealand art late in life for her quirky images of ballerinas, animals and landscapes painted on rice sacks and supermarket box cardboard.

Her granddaughter revealed at the opening of a tribute exhibition of her work at Toi Mahara, in Waikanae, that family recognition of her grandmother’s achievements also took time.

Sue Soo started painting after the death of her husband in 1981.

“When you paint, you forget your loneliness,” she said. “You can cry for the moon but the moon won’t come down.”

She and her husband had been market gardeners in Levin before running fruit shops in Raumati and then retiring to the Wellington suburb of Kilbirnie. It was there that art historian and curator Jill Trevelyan chanced to see Sue Soo’s work in the window of her flat.

“I realised that she’s created an entire world of her own in her pictures,” Jill said. “It’s such a joyful vision she has – an idyllic world where the sun is always shining, and the girls and boys go on dancing all day.”

“I remember asking her where it all came from – was she thinking of a place she’d visited, that she remembered? She just laughed at me. ‘I make it up!’ she said. ‘It’s all in my head!’”

Granddaughter Joanne Kwok says she didn’t give much thought to her grandmother’s arts and crafts, or her paintings, until her mother told her about Sue Soo’s first exhibition at One Eye Gallery in Paekākāriki in May 2003.

“I recall feeling very proud when I found out that my granny had been discovered as an ‘artist’ later in life,” Joanne says. “Mum sent me a newspaper clipping about Granny. I've kept that cutting to this day.

“From then on, I paid more attention to my granny's art and began to really like the quirky style and vibrant colours. The whole family became very proud of my granny and discovered an appreciation for her artwork.”

The exhibition at Toi Mahara, Kāpiti’s district art gallery, includes a representative display of works selected by the gallery from about 600 paintings that Sue Soo left behind when she died in 2016. Joanne says her grandmother would be delighted to see her works displayed one more time in the new gallery.

“She used to be so surprised when people she didn’t know would be interested in her paintings. I remember her giggling like a schoolgirl when she spotted stickers next to her ‘sold’ paintings at various exhibitions.”

Jill Trevelyan says that Sue Soo’s preoccupation with ballerinas came from a love of the ballet.

“She liked to get ballet books from the library and she cut pictures of ballerinas from newspapers and magazines.”

Sue Soo didn’t think of herself as an artist, insisting that anyone could paint and declaring, “any dumb cluck can do it”.

But Jill saw qualities that Sue didn’t. Her interest led to exhibitions in public galleries, including City Gallery in Wellington, the Sarjeant in Whanganui and Mahara Gallery first in 2010.

Recognising the element of harmony – prized in Chinese culture – Sue Soo’s family is donating the proceeds of sales from the exhibition to Te Ara Korowai wellness centre in Raumati, close to the Margaret Street house she once lived in with her husband, Ken, and five children.

Te Ara Korowai provides opportunities for local people to participate in creativity and well-being focused classes. Art is a significant element of the courses.

Sue Soo, a tribute show can be viewed in Toi Mahara’s Waipuna Toi  Community Space until April 6.