Sue Kennington: "It has nothing to do with feeling, it has everything to do with precision."

Although Kennington has a very scientific mind, she knows, after years of experimentation, that her work is best when she is outside of that over-analytical condition, free from any sort of conscious control. However, to get to that place, Kennington explains to me, you’ve got to get the specifics right first. You can’t get reckless without laying the foundations, or the painting will die. “It has nothing to do with feeling, it has everything to do with precision.” This realisation didn’t happen overnight. Kennington has continually expanded her colour library since graduating from her MA in Fine Art in 2002, meticulously studying what makes colour come alive, and now crafting all of her own paints in her Italian home in Crete Senesi, Toscana. Her pictorial research begins with the complete systemisation of the colour spectrum, storing her results on none other than an excel spreadsheet. It ends with the instinctive free fall of paint onto canvas. 

“I believe in the power of perception. I love how humans react to things that aren’t logical, like sound and non-narrative forms of expression. We’re always trying to decipher and pull them apart, but there’s no way to understand them except through perception.” Kennington compares the way in which she approaches this research to the way a choreographer directs a dance or a maestro conducts an orchestra; you’re engineering your medium, arranging your dance troupe, guiding your musicians, in order to say something. “It’s about balancing the scientific and creative parts of yourself. My colour library keeps one part of my brain busy, allowing the other part to move intuitively.” The creative act becomes a balancing act, exploring the inherent tensions between science and impulse, reason and intuition. “The paint goes on very fast, for example, but the making of the paint is incredibly slow and precise.” 

“Like dance—you start self-conscious, hoping you look right, but after a certain point, you take off, and it becomes hypnotic. You’re beautiful because you’re no longer conscious of yourself. Art is the same.” To be no longer conscious of yourself in the creative act takes time and experimentation and trust in the “deep-down thing” that you’re trying to say. The more you do it, the more you become a connoisseur. “It’s a bit like falling in love,” Kennington tells me. “Experience gives you a broader understanding.” 

I ask Kennington how she knows when she’s said the thing that she’s trying to say. Is it ever possible to know without being inside the perceiver's mind? The message is less about the observer for Kennington though, and more about the painting itself. “It speaks to you.” Kennington explains. “It has its own life. You’re no longer trying to make it have a life.” 

For many years, Kennington knew what she wanted to say with her work but struggled to find the right means of expression, leading to unease and disappointment in the outcome of her practice. “The colour wasn’t saying what I wanted it to. Ninety percent of my pieces just weren’t working. Now, because of all the work I’ve done–although this will never be definitive–they’ve started to make sense. Every day that you do it, it takes you further in. You get more and more familiar with that language, with the way a colour speaks.” 

I push to find out what led to this revelation and, like her research, there isn’t a definitive answer. One thing Kennington is sure of, though, is her exploration of loss. “I didn’t notice for a long time, but during my time at Goldsmiths a professor said to me: all your work is about loss. Sometimes, people say things that really stick with you and change the way you see the world or, in my case, my art. Everything suddenly made a lot of sense. I lost my parents very young, moved countries often, experienced a lot of death and grief. There’s always this longing for something that isn’t quite here in my work. Now this idea is in the motor, I can’t unhinge it.” 

This is something that Kennington advises in her creative lectures, on the rare occasion she teaches. The problem a lot of emerging artists encounter is they don’t really know what to say. Not that you should go looking for pain or grief, she adds, but if you don’t have any experiences, what do you have to say? It’s really hard to draw from an empty well. “You have to feel something real. There’s just something about that slightly troubled psyche that produces good art.” 

“I never wanted to be an artist.” As a kid, Kennington loved drawing but, coming from a family of important artists, witnessing the trials and tribulations and pressures of it all, she thought it wasn't for her. “I worked in the theatre and didn’t draw until my father became very ill. I started drawing him when he was sick. And then it became… immediate. Someone said you’ve got to go to art school. It became so obvious. It just felt so normal. Finally, something felt right.” I ask if art has become a therapy for Kennington, but she disagrees. “I wouldn’t call it therapy, drawing my father. I’m just very visual and drawing helped me to make sense of things.” A nod towards her future desire to channel the infinite possibilities of colour as a visual language, to unravel the systems behind every tint and tone.

Before heading to art school, Kennington took to travelling and other forms of experimentation I’m sure she’d tell you about in person if you ask her(!) in pursuit of simply experiencing more. “It was amazing. I wanted experience and I wanted to do something. I nearly died. It was incredible.” I make a mental note to call Kennington if I’m ever lost in a desert, or in any emergency for that matter. 

Today, Kennington has exchanged her thrill-seeking lifestyle for the vibrant and captivating ambiance of Italy, a land that has inspired countless great artists with its unparalleled colour palette. That said, she hasn’t quite given up on her pursuit of emotional experiences; Kennington often takes midnight strolls in the blackened forest surrounding her Tuscan home, quietly hunting for new inspiration. “Nightwalking has influenced my recent work.” I picture this like a Grimm’s fairy tale—walking in complete darkness, enveloped by tenebrous trees, hearing wild boars, and feeling the moist, spongy moss beneath her feet. “It makes you feel a lot.” Not quite nearly perishing in the Sahara, but humbling and mind-opening nonetheless. 

It’s this wandering sense of seeking out, of something just about to reveal itself, that pulls observers right in. Critics consistently praise Kennington’s paintings for their inhabitable nature, likening them to doorways into realms just beyond our reach. This anticipation of an opening, of endless possibility, is where and how her use of light truly shines. Physically, Kennington's profound understanding of colour intervals makes the light in her paintings palpable. Emotionally, her work offers a glimmer of hope, much like the light that softly wakes you in the morning or reassures you when you gaze at the stars or over a vast landscape. They remind us that there is more to this life, and that everything will be okay.

You can see Sue Kennington’s artwork in person at Soho Home King’s Road Studio as part of Rise Art’s ongoing ‘Dwellings’ exhibition.