Susy Pegrum (1962 - 2007)

"The long Mid-Wales winter has given me time to reflect on the life and work of my late sister Susy Pegrum, the artist who died of cancer here at Llanwrthwl in August last year at the age of 45.

What is it that the good artist does that makes a picture stand out from a wall of mediocrity? What is it that artists do when their pictures climb down off the wall and grab us even by the heart? How can they make us feel that we must change our lives? Well, it seems that artists have their own magic rites, their secret alchemical mix of oil and pigment and they alone know how to do it. Susy had the trick in spades.

People keep telling me what a gift she had and I am starting to believe it. Her imaginative watercolours seem to effect so many people from all walks of life and so very deeply.

Through colour and composition and an intuitive understanding of the landscape she seemed able to awaken in us a faculty for understanding ourselves.

Susy told me that each painting represented a particular emotional impasse in her life and painting was her way of resolving the issues.

It could be a painful process and we have benefitted from her struggles to find a way through.

She felt so very deeply and hated seeing people suffer. She was always kind and attentive to people's needs and would roll up her sleeves and do what needed to be done, be it lambing, haymaking or whatever. She got involved, she wanted to be involved.

She believed that life was a communal thing and to be shared. Her door was always open and there was always soup on the hob.

She always found time to listen to friends and she fascinated us with her enthusiasm for the natural world which she knew intimately.

In this way she won the hearts of everyone in this valley with her positive encouragement and sympathetic joy. All this was reflected in her art.

After her funeral we sprinkled baskets of petals into the River Wye and they stained the water in all the brilliant colours that had shone through her days. For a brief moment she lit up our lives with her paintings and reminded us how to live."

Article by Chris Pegrum