Over the past several years Sue has created a body of work that chronicles the destruction of the neighborhood where she has lived, with her late husband John, for forty years. Changes in zoning and occupancy rates in Seattle have resulted in incentives for developers to tear down the beautiful old houses in already crowded neighborhoods, and replace them with ugly, balloon construction multi-family units. Not only are these new structures a blight on the neighborly landscape, the disruption and noise of demolition and rebuilding have become a permanent feature of Sue and her neighbors' daily walks.

Recently, at one of our Online Group Critique sessions, Sue said "I'm painting to save my life!" The double entendre was well suited to her work, and to these paintings in particular. These are noisy paintings, an almost heroic effort to bear witness and display defiance to the chaos, dislocation and disenfranchisement that Seattle has become. Her message and her language are far more eloquent than the anonymous graffiti that a neighbor left at one of the construction sites: "F**k you, techie scum!" Sue Perry's paintings of this transformation now number over 30, and may well be the most important legacy of yet another effort by Seattle and its civic leadership to become a "big city."

You can view more of Sue Perry's work at her website, www.sueperry-paintings.com .