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Sue Henry has almost two dozen paintings on display at the Wits’ End. It’s a show she calls, “Splash”, as all of the works are linked to water in some way.

One new painting, however, is not hanging in the main room with the rest. That’s by design.

“Deliverance” by Sue Henry. To take it in, stand down the hallway,

Sue says that “Deliverance”, a view from the bow-sprit of a boat, comes together best when you stand back from it. Which is why it’s tucked in a spot at the end of a hallway. The sloping floors and slanting ceilings of the Wit’s End make it easy to imagine the “Deliverance” bowsprit poking out over a tightly packed dock.

Many of Sue’s other paintings over the years have homed in on particular parts of boats. As she puts it, “Folded sails are what people expect from me,” Some of them are also in this show.

“Mainsail #5” or “Mainsail of Periauger”

“Mainsail #5” (aka “Mainsail of Periauger”) was inspired by a replica of a small colonial era cargo boat. When it stopped in at Oriental’s Town Dock a few years ago, Sue took a photo of the boat, called a ‘periauger’.

Snapping a photo is something she she has done often around Oriental’s waterfront and boatyards. If a boat caught her eye, she would try to capture it in her camera.

“Will Flannery’s Boat”.

Sue says she uses the photos as “a starter idea,” but not everything in the camera frame ends up on the canvas. “I like to crop down and get a close up.” Sue says. “I crop and crop and crop.”

From that pared down bit of realism, she says, she can then go off on a tangent. To her, having that freedom, is the beauty of painting.

Sue’s back room, where she paints now. Tacked to her easel is a photo which she used as the basis for the painting, “Will Flannery’s Boat”. The “Finz” painting drew upon a photo taken at a Beaufort restaurant.

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Posted Friday August 29, 2008 by Melinda Penkava

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