About the Artist
Sue Averell
Sue Averell is a painter who has lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1997. Born in Ohio and raised in Southern California, she studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and spent her early years working in graphic design and illustration, which gave her the time to develop her own way of painting. In 1999 she rented her first real art studio and began painting the urban landscape of San Francisco, a city that gave her constant energy. By 2001 she had a full body of city paintings and was picked up by North Beach Gallery in San Francisco, which later added her botanical paintings as well. For several years she painted both in San Francisco and in Thailand, where she lived for months at a time. Her style is unmistakable: thick, textured impasto in acrylic and polymers on stretched canvas, with colour that is bold and joyful. Her main series are Urban Landscape, Botanical, Natural Landscape and Abstract, and her archive holds more than 600 paintings since 1999. Large works are what she enjoys most, and since 2005 much of her work has been commissioned by corporate and private collectors. Her paintings are in collections in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Asia. Sue has also built community for artists. In 2007 she co-founded the ICB Artists Association in Sausalito, in 2009 she founded Sausalito Artists @ Work, and in 2017 she opened Gallery Sausalito at 28 Princess Street, where she shows her own work alongside seven artists she represents and paints most afternoons in the working studio inside the gallery. She has painted at invitational residencies in St. Thomas and Abu Dhabi, and in 2023 she was invited to India to paint murals on granite slabs at an education center outside Bangalore. For Sue, sharing the creative process is part of the work. Visitors to the gallery can watch her paint, and she loves seeing which paintings people connect with. As she puts it: sharing my creative process helps collectors connect with my work.
“Sue Averell is a Sausalito painter known for thick, textured acrylic and polymer paintings in bold colour. Her Urban Landscape, Botanical, Natural Landscape and Abstract series grew from San Francisco streets into more than 600 works since 1999.”
The Process
Inside the Studio
The Painting Process
Sue's paintings are built up, not just painted. She works in acrylic and polymers on stretched canvas, layering paint thickly so that every stroke stands up from the surface and catches the light. That textured, impasto style is what collectors recognise in her work, whether it shows a San Francisco street, a single flower or a sweep of open land. She learned her eye for composition in graphic design and illustration, and it shows in the way she simplifies a scene into strong shapes and bold colour. A city block becomes a rhythm of colour and buildings; a flower fills the whole canvas until it is almost abstract. Commissions follow a careful, step-by-step process. Sue first identifies the subject and the size of the finished work with the client. Before any paint touches the canvas she makes a line sketch to capture the content, and often a full-colour miniature painting that is sent to the client so the real colours can be seen in the room where the work will hang. Only then does she start the large canvas. She takes the time to understand every part of the commission, down to the delivery, and works with professional art handlers so each painting arrives in perfect condition. Sue paints most afternoons in the working studio inside Gallery Sausalito, so collectors can stop by, watch a painting take shape and talk with her about it. For Sue, sharing the process is part of the art.
