“Visual adventurer” Sue Doeksen's colourful work masters the abstract and the figurative

Netherlands-based Sue Doeksen describes herself as a “visual adventurer” on her website. When quizzed as to why, she laughs and says" “I just like discovering things and playing with ideas. I never approach projects in one particular way.” Her distinctive work is striking for its bold use of colour and her style translates effortlessly from character driven illustration to abstract compositions for poster designs and art works.

Having studied graphic design and illustration at Utrecht School of the Arts she has developed her style using what could be considered old fashioned media. “I spend a lot of the time at the library,” says Sue. “I don’t tend to head straight to the internet, I don’t tend to use Instagram and things like that.” This is reflected in her methods that sees her physically cut shapes of coloured card to create compositions – which was the starting point for the identity she has developed for the Anima Festival in Brussels that happened last week, the identity was animated in collaboration with Mitchel Tan and Max Italiaander.

For her Landmark X Memory Mark exhibition at KOKO in Amsterdam, Sue asked people to fill in a form to describe a fond memory. She then turned this response into an abstract work that was intended to act as a cognitive orientation point that would evoke that memory every time they looked at it. This was then developed into a series of pins that could be arranged by the wearer and a mobile. This year Sue is also working on projects for Swedish housing company Hemnet, an identity for an ice cream store in Milan and a classical music app for children.