Sue Coleman

Sue Coleman (born March 1947) is a wildlife painter from England who moved to Vancouver Island, in Canada in 1967. Coleman is known for her watercolour paintings in which she uses a controversial style adapting the styles and motifs of Indigenous art. She also paints west-coast scenes, wildlife, and landscapes. Coleman has written and illustrated seven books.

Career In 1967, Coleman moved from England to Canada and began to study the art of First Nations artists in the 1980s. She has called what she does as a "translation" of Indigenous Canadian art. She then began to make art that combines the style and motifs of Northwest Coast Indigenous art with her own representational style because as she has said, "I wanted to help non native people, understand the art form." She does not feel that she is actually copying or reproducing any Indigenous artists' specific works, but rather she has stated that her work "adapts and blends a number of Indigenous styles from B.C. to create her own original style."

Awards "Silver Teal Award" (1994). Presented by Ducks Unlimited in British Columbia

Books An Artist’s Vision (1989) By Sue Coleman Artist at Large in the Queen Charlotte Islands (1992) By Sue Coleman Artist at Large along the South Coast of Alaska (1993) By Sue Coleman "Biggle Foo meets Stinky" (1997) By Sue Coleman Biggle Foo Becomes a Legend (1997) By Sue Coleman Return of the Raven (2013) By Sue Coleman The Trumpeter Swan (2015) By Sue Coleman

Personal Coleman is from Colchester, Essex England. In 1967, she married Canadian Dan Coleman (whom she met in high school while Dan lived with his mother in Colchester), and she lives in Cowichan Bay. Coleman was trained as a pastry chef but began painting in the 1980s. Coleman works to promote environmental conservation.