Susan Brown is the Traditional Artist Spotlight winning artist for the month of February 2022. She is an award-winning artist based in Santa Cruz, California, USA.
Susan’s Solo Art Exhibition will be featured on the website for the month of February 2022. The gallery will promote Susan and her work on the Fusion Art website, individual online press releases to hundreds of outlets, email blasts to over 7,500+ buyers, collectors, galleries and art professionals, in online event calendars, art news websites and through the gallery’s extensive social media outlets. Fusion Art’s objective is to promote the Artist Spotlight winning artists, worldwide, to art professionals, gallerists, collectors and buyers.
Please read Susan’s Artist Biography and Artist Statement below as she describes her history and inspiration in her own words. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see her exhibition.
If you are interested in purchasing any of these award-winning pieces, or to see more of Susan’s work, please visit her website.
Also, please visit Fusion Art’s YouTube Channel to see Susan’s Solo Art Exhibition Video.
Thank you to all the artists who participated in the Artist Spotlight competition and congratulations to Susan and the other Artist Spotlight winning artists.
Artist Biography
Susan L. Brown is a contemporary artist whose current work is inspired by Robert Diebenkorn, John Singer Sargent, and David Park. In 2020, her solo exhibit of location paintings, California Dreamin’, was featured in an international virtual 3-D gallery through Seilarte/eventi. In 2011, Susan was invited to represent the United States in the Biennale Exhibition of Contemporary Art in Venice, Italy.
An artist since childhood, Susan won awards as a student in Ohio, including as Statewide Student Artist at age 12. Moving to California in 1978, she continued studying drawing and painting at College of San Mateo, San Jose State and UC Santa Cruz. In addition, she attended painting workshops taught by leading instructors, including figure studies with Susie Wilson and Mike Fishell, and oil painting technique from Dennis Perrin and Darren Kerr. After a career in Silicon Valley, she devoted herself to become a full time artist in 2016.
Among her awards, gallery associations and juried shows are Pacific Art League (Palo Alto, CA), Beyond 2020 (poster), Santa Cruz Open Studios 2021, the 91st Annual CA Landscape Exhibition (Dec. 2021-Jan. 2022), and “Faces and Figures, (finalist),” Fusion Art. Her work, both non and commissioned, also appears in private collections. Susan has taught painting techniques privately and through various city parks and recreation departments throughout California and has taught painting workshops at Ghost Ranch, NM, and will again as soon as Covid allows.
She lives in beautiful Santa Cruz, CA, near the town of Davenport, and not too far from the San Francisco Bay Area. She also has a special love for the Southwest, especially for the clarity of the light!
Artist Statement
Painting and drawing have always been part of my life since I can remember, however, in 2016, I made it my full time work. I create both independent and commissioned pieces, and my current work is inspired by Diebenkorn, Matisse, David Park and John Singer Sargent. My work relies on color, form and pattern, in that order. I am best described as a colorist who blends reality and imagination; not an exact realist.
I work in acrylic, oil and watercolor. I especially enjoy painting in acrylics for the boldness of the palette options and ability to add texture to my paintings. That said, the flow of watercolor offers freedom and “happy surprises” which add to the immediacy of my paintings. Oil gives me the ability to add depth and fluency, as well as a range of color and texture effects.
In my street scenes and similar “location” series of paintings I have found a love of solving the geometry and ability to create a sense of place. The emotional attachment to home and familiar places is very important to me. I hope viewers of these paintings feel recognition, even if the location is not one they haven’t personally visited.
During the pandemic, since March, 2020, I’ve been studying portraiture for up to 9hrs/week with Darren Kerr, an excellent teacher from the Pacific Art League, Palo Alto, CA. I seek the challenge of portraying human emotion and thought in my painting.
Exhibitions/Juried Shows I’ve been in since 2020 include California Dreamin’,” Solo International Exhibition, 2020, 2021 Santa Cruz Open Studios, 91st CA Landscape Exhibition (Dec. 2021-Jan. 2022), Pacific Art League, Beyond 2020—99th Year Celebration, (poster) and their 100th Year Exhibition, (Nov. 2021—Jan. 2022).
