Chinese-born, San Francisco-based artist Jesselle Sue creates elegant abstract compositions with a minimalist aesthetic. Sue experimented with a host of mediums, until she found her preferred mode of expression in acrylic and charcoal on canvas, linen, or Arches Cover paper. While working, Sue retains the formal elements of her medium, but frees them from artistic logic in order to embrace the vision in her mind’s eye. Her preferred abstraction fosters this exploration and allows her to improvise liberally. Her simple, minimalist canvases focus only on the essential, materializing the shapes and colors she imagines. In fact, the simpler an idea or painting is, the more Sue likes it.
Sue’s love for art developed in foster care, where she lived in the homes of sculptors and painters. She studied interior design in China, and has been published in various interior design magazines. Sue moved to San Francisco seven years ago, where she now works as a full-time painter and belongs to the San Francisco Women Artists organization. Sue’s greatest inspirations are Chinese landscapes, Japanese watercolors, a lifelong passion for travel, and abstract painters such as Robert Motherwell. She aims to channel the influence and lifestyle of Japanese minimalism into her work, evident in the few, privileged forms for which she allows space on each canvas.
