ART SHOWS
SPRAWLED was selected for the all media show,
The Art League at the Torpedo Factory, December, 2013
DA was selected for Body Language,
The Art League at the Torpedo Factory, October, 2013
HAPPY PLACE was selected and won an Honorable Mention at the all media show,
The Art League at the Torpedo Factory, September, 2013
HAPPY PLACE won an Honorable Mention, and SPRAWLED won First Place
Artful August Art Show, Village of Leesburg, August 14-18, 2013
KOENIGSTEIN, GERMANY was selected for 'Scapes,
The Art League at the Torpedo Factory, August, 2013
SPRAWLED was selected for the all media show,
The Art League at the Torpedo Factory, December, 2013
DA was selected for Body Language,
The Art League at the Torpedo Factory, October, 2013
HAPPY PLACE was selected and won an Honorable Mention at the all media show,
The Art League at the Torpedo Factory, September, 2013
HAPPY PLACE won an Honorable Mention, and SPRAWLED won First Place
Artful August Art Show, Village of Leesburg, August 14-18, 2013
KOENIGSTEIN, GERMANY was selected for 'Scapes,
The Art League at the Torpedo Factory, August, 2013
SUSAN SHERWIN was born in Michigan, spent 4 years in West Germany, and then most of her adult life in Wisconsin.
She recently moved to Virginia after retiring from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point as their costume designer.
Susan received her MFA in Theatre from Wayne State University (Detroit, MI). After 20 years designing, rendering, and building
clothing for imaginary characters, she is now finding her voice as a fine artist in oils.
Susan paints landscape, still-life, figurative and animals in a realistic style. Her series “Tempted?” is conceives as capturing the
moment when something is unwrapped and the viewer gets a visceral desire.
She is also working through the concepts of a “casual portrait”, in which the situation, location, and mood are integral to the portrait.
She describes her work as realistic. She chooses subjects that have emotional appeal, often with a narrative. After years of seeing
“reality” in theatre with heightened colors, dramatic lighting, and stylized settings, she used all those elements along
with an unusual sense of cropping and composition in her work.
She recently moved to Virginia after retiring from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point as their costume designer.
Susan received her MFA in Theatre from Wayne State University (Detroit, MI). After 20 years designing, rendering, and building
clothing for imaginary characters, she is now finding her voice as a fine artist in oils.
Susan paints landscape, still-life, figurative and animals in a realistic style. Her series “Tempted?” is conceives as capturing the
moment when something is unwrapped and the viewer gets a visceral desire.
She is also working through the concepts of a “casual portrait”, in which the situation, location, and mood are integral to the portrait.
She describes her work as realistic. She chooses subjects that have emotional appeal, often with a narrative. After years of seeing
“reality” in theatre with heightened colors, dramatic lighting, and stylized settings, she used all those elements along
with an unusual sense of cropping and composition in her work.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I
am working with the concept of a “casual” portrait created from a candid photo.
I minimize the optical distortions, sift the detail for what is essential, and
then craft the painting into a portrait that retains all the emotion of the
photo. The first layer of painting is very important to me. That is where I use
the most gestural and dynamic brushstrokes. Very often I find passages that are
toned canvas with a set of loose brushstrokes that set the mood for the
painting as a whole.
My point of view originates from my previous career as a theatrical costume designer. After years of embracing the art of theatre, my aesthetic includes heightened lighting of a figure, a cropped composition, and a bold use of color set within the essential moment of the subject and the circumstances.
In theatre Bertolt Brecht maintained that the audience should always be aware that they are seeing theatre rather than an illusion of the real thing. I do not strive for photo realism. I want my audience to see the brushstrokes, to always know that what they are seeing is an accumulation of oil paint and brush strokes, shifting our perception to appear life-like. I think it is pleasurable to let the mind explore the edges, and to perhaps find the techniques that I have used to create a passage.
I work for a realistic likeness to enable me to capture the personality and mood. I almost always include the hands and something that my model loves, often a favorite pet. On a technical level it gives me the opportunity for texture and a different scale of detail; psychologically, we are often very vulnerable and emotional with our pets. All of these details make the moment very specific to the person, the location, the activity and the lighting. I always include the smallest details like jewelry, finger nails, and buttonholes.
I am astounded when a very idiosyncratic piece somehow shifts and becomes iconic and represents general truth of our times. I aspire to create such work.
My point of view originates from my previous career as a theatrical costume designer. After years of embracing the art of theatre, my aesthetic includes heightened lighting of a figure, a cropped composition, and a bold use of color set within the essential moment of the subject and the circumstances.
In theatre Bertolt Brecht maintained that the audience should always be aware that they are seeing theatre rather than an illusion of the real thing. I do not strive for photo realism. I want my audience to see the brushstrokes, to always know that what they are seeing is an accumulation of oil paint and brush strokes, shifting our perception to appear life-like. I think it is pleasurable to let the mind explore the edges, and to perhaps find the techniques that I have used to create a passage.
I work for a realistic likeness to enable me to capture the personality and mood. I almost always include the hands and something that my model loves, often a favorite pet. On a technical level it gives me the opportunity for texture and a different scale of detail; psychologically, we are often very vulnerable and emotional with our pets. All of these details make the moment very specific to the person, the location, the activity and the lighting. I always include the smallest details like jewelry, finger nails, and buttonholes.
I am astounded when a very idiosyncratic piece somehow shifts and becomes iconic and represents general truth of our times. I aspire to create such work.