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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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This past year has brought on what Sue calls – with characteristically droll sunniness – “a lifestyle change.”

Sue Henry on her back porch. .

Last fall, Sue was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood’s plasma. The illness and chemotherapy treatment take a toll, but when energy allows, she’s been painting. She’s focussing on it more, she says, than she did when she ran her sign shop. (A long-time institution in the Old Hotel, she closed the business earlier this year.)

A variety of Sue’s paintings on display at the Wit’s End. Among the new works is a triptych of a floating dock.

Several views of waves, including a triptych of New Zealand waves. Not all water is the same. On a trip to New Zealand 2 years ago, Sue says she found the water a different color from what sailors would find in the Bahamas.

With her “free time,” Sue says she’s also been doing more studying and reading about painting and painters. Near her couch and bed are books on Monet, Matisse, Gaugin and other Impressionists.

Sue says that while bed-ridden for periods of time, she’s recently read those bios with more intensity than she did as a student – “not just skimming over it all like you do in Art History.” In particular, she’s focused on what artists, such as Gaugin, had to say about their influences and how they worked.

Sue’s working table. Her paintings tap often in to what she calls, Bahamian colors. Teal, coral and yellow predominate. Some of those sun saturated colors from the islands even show up even in paintings of a rocky Maine shore.

Sue’s back porch window develops a water view with some of her paintings.

A native of Pennsylvania, Sue’s been living in Oriental for about 25 years and has drawn on the water here for ideas and inspirations for many of her paintings. Passing the harbor on the way back from a medical appointment one day this summer, she commented that so much of her heart and soul are linked to that part of town. She doesn’t get down there as much as she’d like right now, but has a backlog of photos and a sketch book of travels to Maine and New Zealand to tap in to. And she’s also looking to take on some new subject matter.

From Sue Henry’s mainsail series. It is part of the exhibition at the Wit’s End.

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Sue Henry’s work will be on display at the Wits End for several weeks. The opening reception is Saturday morning, August 30 starting at 9am.

Posted Friday August 29, 2008 by Melinda Penkava