Joy by name, joy by nature: A daughter’s artistic tribute to her mother

Artist Sue Ransley will present her first solo exhibition at Cranleigh Arts Centre, this October, celebrating the life and creative work of her late mother.

Born in 1918, Joyce ‘Joy’ Davis belonged to a generation in which women were often reduced to the label ‘housewife’. Yet she was so much more than that as her daughter Sue Ransley will demonstrate in her first solo exhibition.

Alongside being a much-loved wife, mother and grandmother, she was an inventor, published knitwear designer, author, artist and colour theorist.

Joy was also dyslexic and left-handed. At convent school, she remembers being told she was the “spawn of the devil”- a phrase that reflects the attitudes she encountered during her childhood and the many obstacles she had to overcome.

Running from October 13–31 2026, (not just a) HOUSEWIFE explores the different threads of Joy’s life. One part of the exhibition focuses on her family, work and creative identity. The other comprises a series of small works by Sue, inspired by memories, places, notes, writings and the things Joy loved.

“Mum always dreamed of staging a ‘One Woman, One Hundred Works’ exhibition, but never felt confident enough in her own work to do it. This show is my way of reconnecting with her, and the small works – of which there will be 100 – are my ode to Joy – a way of making her dream happen, and to celebrate everything she was beyond the label of ‘housewife’.”

Sue hopes that visitors will leave with a sense of Joy as a warm, engaged, funny and loving woman who was also a little bit naughty, “Joy by name, and Joy by nature”.

The exhibition is also a full-circle moment for Sue. She came to art later in life through an adult education class at Cranleigh Arts Centre.

Her parents spent the last 10 years of their lives in Cranleigh, and Joy loved the Arts Centre, volunteering there for a period.

Joy died in 1994. Through (not just a) HOUSEWIFE, Sue is revisiting her mother’s life and bringing her back into sharper focus through painting, memory and family history.

Original artworks, prints and booklets will be available to purchase.

A contemporary figurative artist, Sue’s work focuses on candid and affectionate observations of everyday people. She captures familiar moments, quirks, behaviours and imagined conversations, working from photographs and sketches made while out and about.

Sue is happiest with a camera and sketchbook in hand, observing the everyday moments that make people and places feel familiar. These observations are later developed into paintings in her studio.

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