Works in this series are available at the BULL YARD GALLERY, Southwell, Notts.

These paintings formed part of a solo exhibition of Susan's work at the WIRKSWORTH HERITAGE CENTRE Crown Yard, Market Place, Wirksworth, Derbyshire from 5th to 30th June 2009 (WEDS-SUN, 10-30AM - 4-30PM, Free Entrance to the exhibition). They were exhibited in tandem with a series of ceramic sculptural pieces on the theme of 'HUMAN LANDSCAPES'.

In this exhibition Susan has examined how landscape has been infiltrated by the industrial activities of past generations. Whether disused, modified in operation or continuing in original purpose, the time-softened forms of industrial structures are haunting monuments to a previous existence, often incidentally enhancing and providing new focus to the landscape.

As much as the more obviously 'industrial' structures we see around us, town centres are the product of our ancestor's working lives - Wirksworth itself has a strong industrial past that forms much of the infrastructure to its continued bustling activity. By contrast canals and canalised rivers, the once hectic highways of a newly industrious nation, continue in use but as calm, almost sleepy rural oases. Close to Wirksworth the Cromford Canal, with its aqueducts and pumphouses, now seems an integral part of the surrounding woodland and local wildlife. Branching away from the canal in its own long and exquisitely winding trail through the Peak District, the now disused Cromford and High Peak Railway is puntuated by features such as the Middleton Top Engine House with its tenderly cared for beam engine. Perhaps more dramatically, entirely disused ruined structures such as the remains of the engine houses at Botallack in Cornwall cling vertiginously to the dramatic cliff face from which they seem to have emerged and are slowly being reabsorbed.

Elsewhere, man-made forms have been built on such a scale that they dominate their natural surround-
ings. Hence, the monumental cooling towers at Radcliffe-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire form a distinctive and dramatic backdrop to locks on the River Soar, whilst the sweeping towers of Derby-
shire's Derwent and Howden dams rise up from valley sides to stand at the divide between dramatically cascading overspill and an upstream expanse of still reflection.