In December and January, Annie Soudain’s vibrant and colourful work will be on display at the discovery centre at Rye Harbour.
She is an award-winning artist who is well known in the south-east of England. Many of her linocuts feature the landscape around Rye Bay and Romney Marsh. She lives locally in Fairlight and takes her inspiration from her local walks and the South Downs observed on regular drives to Lewes, where once a month she works in the Sussex Guild shop, which is in Southover Grange. “Every day,” she explained, “the light on the sea is different and I never tire of the views. Sometimes driving into the park the colours and patterns on the sea take my breath away.”
Annie was born on a farm belonging to her paternal grandfather in the Kent North Downs between Dover and Canterbury. She spent her childhood in Cornwall where she discovered her love of nature. After school in Dover and art college in Canterbury she went to Brighton to do her training to become an art teacher. She taught at Westlain Grammar School in Brighton and later returned to teaching at Claremont School in Hastings.
Her work, which is eye-catching and lively, depicts flowers, birds and landscapes. When Annie retired, she put all her energies into her own creations. She produces small print runs because her method of printing is complicated and labour-intensive. It is known as reduction method and it uses only one block with progressive cutting, inking and printing. She is happy to explain in detail how the prints are produced.
Annie has enjoyed working with many forms of art styles and in 2002 she was commissioned to decorate a life-sized fibreglass cow. She chose to cover it with pictures of birds and it was aptly named Dawn Cowrus. It stood in the grounds of the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood and was later auctioned at the Royal Smithfield Show to raise money for charity. Annie takes part in the South East Open Studios in June and in September in two weekends of Coastal Currents.
Image Credits: Kt bruce .